50 ARBORETUM ET FRUTICETUM BRITANMICUM. 



tree. The root and wood are of a dark yellow colour, and form the yellow 

 wood of Persian authors ; they are used as a dye, and, being bitter and a 

 little astringent, they, as well as the bark, are employed in medicine. (Roy/e's 

 Illust., p. 63.) In Nepal, the fruit of this species* is dried, like grapes for 

 forming raisins, in the sun. A most desirable plant, calculated to produce a 

 splendid effect, both when in flower and when in fruit, upon an open lawn. 

 As a rapid grower, it ought not to be planted near slow-growing shrubs 01 

 trees. 



Other Species of Berberis. B. Coridria Royle, a species having the same 

 general appearance as B. aristata, has been raised in the Horticultural 

 Society's Garden, and there are plants 3 ft. high, but they have not yet flow- 

 ered. Plants have been raised in the Horticultural Society's Garden, and 

 in some nurseries, from seeds received from Mexico and Nepal ; but, though 

 these have new names, it is not certain that they will all prove new species, 

 and therefore we consider it better not to record them till they have flow- 

 ered. In Hook. Hot. Mis. vol. iii., B. chilensis Gill., B. ruscifblia Lam., B. 

 corymbosa Hook, et Arn., B. glomerdta Hook, et Arn., and B. Grevilleana Gill., 

 are described, or mentioned, as having been found in South America, and 

 Dr. Hooker has specimens of them in his herbarium. Numerous varieties 

 of Berberis vulgaris are raised in the London gardens, under continental names, 

 as if they were species, but very few of them are worth keeping distinct. 

 See in Gard. Mag. for 1840, p. 1., Mr. Gordon's Report on those raised 

 in the Horticultural Society's Garden in 1839. 



GENUS II. 



MAHO N N/J Nutt. THE MAHONIA, or ASH BERBERRY. Lin.St/st. Hexandria 



Monogynia. 



Identification. Nutt. Gen. Amer., 1. p. 307. ; Dec. Prod., 1. p. 108. ; Don's Mill., p. 117. 

 Kynonymes. Berberis of authors ; Odosttmon Raf. ; Ash Berberry Pen. Cycl. 

 Derivation. Named by Nuttall in honour of Bernard M'Mahon, a seedsman at Philadelphia, the 

 author of the American Gardener's Calendar, and an ardent lover of botanical science. 



Gen. Char. Sepals 6, guarded on the outside by three scales. Petals 6, with- 

 out glands on the inside. Stamens furnished with a tooth on each side at 

 top of the filament. Berries 3 9-seeded. (Don's Mill.} 



Leaves compound, pinnate, alternate, exstipulate, evergreen ; the leaflets 

 coriaceous, with the margins toothed or serrated. Flowers yellow. Fruit 

 mostly black. Natives of the north-west coast of America, and also of 

 Nepal, and perhaps Japan. 



Though some botanists think that the characters ascribed to this genus, and 

 those ascribed to Berbeiis t as exhibited in p. 41., are not sufficient to keep 

 them separate as genera ; yet the habits of the species of one, as to the mode 

 of growth, foliage, and inflorescence, are so distinct from those of the other, 

 as to induce us to adopt the genus MahomVz. The species in British gardens 

 are all of comparatively slow growth, and admit but of slow multiplication by 

 layers, which require to remain on two years, and scarcely at all by cuttings. 

 Some of them, however, seed freely, and are readily propagated in this way. 

 The seeds of all the species of Mahom'af, and also of those of Berberis, if 

 sown immediately after they are ripe, and protected through the winter from 

 frost, will come up the following spring. 



1. M. FASCICULA V RIS Dec. The crovtded-racemed Mahonia, or Ash Berberry. 



Identification. Dec. Prod., 1. p. 108. ; Don's Mill., 1. p 118. 



Synonymes. Robert's pinnata Lag., Bot. Reg., Bot. Mag., and Tor. 8f Gray ; B. fascicularis Pen. 

 Cyc. In the same work it is stated that Mahonia diversifdlia is the same as this species ; though 

 it is figured and described by Sweet, as a species from Monte Video : see Swt. Br. Fl.-Gar., 2d 

 series,!. 56. 



Bot. Reg., t. 702. ; Bot. Mag., t. 2398. ; and our fig. 72. 



