BERBERIDACEAE. 



57 



BERBERIS. Barberry. 

 (Family Berberidaceae). 



Shrubs, mostly with branched 

 leaf-spines subtending short spurs 

 on which the foliage-leaves are 

 fascicled. Wood and pith often 

 greenish or bright yellow. Twigs 

 mostly sulcate, rather slender: 

 pith relatively large, round, con- 

 tinuous. Buds rather small, soli- 

 tary, sessile, ovoid, with about 

 half-a-dozen pointed scales and, 

 on spurs, the dilated bases of sev- 

 eral leaves of the season; alter- 

 nate, like the spines. Leaf-scars 

 small, at top of the broad persist- 

 ent leaf-bases, half-round: bundle- 

 traces 3, minute, often indistinct: 

 stipule-scars lacking. 



The barberries, long represent- 

 ed in gardens by the single Euro- 

 pean species Berberis vulgaris, 

 have come into popularity of re- 

 cent years through the introduction of numerous Asiatic spe- 

 cies of which the compact-growing B. Thunbergii is now al- 

 most universally planted for low hedges and masses. Fortu- 

 nately, this species does not serve as an alternate host for 

 the black- or stem-rust of wheat, as B. vulgaris does, so that 

 in the prevalent crusade against the latter it may be spared 

 safely; and it may be added that the common barberry pos- 

 sesses no properties which particularly justify its retention as 

 a cultivated plant. 



It is to be noted that the evergreen Mahonias, sometimes 

 referred to the genus Berberis, share with the common bar- 

 berry susceptibility to the black-rust (Puccinia graminis). 



