THE BAEBEEEY. 155 



when set forth as the subtle and inexplicable working of 

 a sort of vegetable feud, might be admitted and recog- 

 nized as the reasonable outcome of a chain of simple 

 natural causes. 



By divesting it of its lower branches and carefully re- 

 moving all the suckers which it so liberally throws up, 

 the barberry may be diverted from its natural bush-like 

 growth, and made to assume a tree-like form; a change 

 which improves not only its appearance but even its pro- 

 duce, since, when its strength is spent in sending up many 

 shoots, the berries are comparatively small and few in 

 number. Those of the ordinary barberry, of a long oval 

 in shape, contain two or even sometimes three seeds ; but 

 a variety, more common in Normandy perhaps than any- 

 where else, entirely devoid of seeds, and more highly 

 prized wherever it is grown than any other kind, is made 

 by the confectioners of Rome into a celebrated sweet- 

 meat known as Comfiture d^Epine vinette this French 

 name for the barberry signifiying acid, or sorrel thorn. As 

 this seedless sort of fruit is found only as the growth of 

 poor soil, or on old plants, and even then it does not seem 

 to be a permanent characteristic since, though the kind 

 can be propagated by layers or cuttings, suckers taken 

 from such bushes always, it is said, produce- the common 

 seeded berries it is generally supposed that this sterile 

 fruit is only a mark of weakness in the plant that bears it, 

 rather than that its production denotes a distinct natural 

 variety. Another rarer kind has smaller flowers, and bears 

 a scantier crop of smaller berries perfectly white. But 

 there are negroes as well as albinoes of this ordinarily red 

 race ; and an evergreen sort brought from the Straits of 

 Magellan has round, sweet, black berries, the size of a 

 black currant, which are used in America, whether green 

 or ripe, for baking in pies, and pronounced to be very good 

 for the purpose. Yet another species, which flourishes 

 specially at Nepal, displays large violet-coloured berries, 

 with proportionately large seeds, which in India are dried 

 like raisins in the sun, and then eaten at dessert. The 

 Mahonias, or Spiny-leaved Barberries, which bear quite 

 valueless fruit, were at one time assigned to a distinct 



