358 



THE GOUMI 



THE BARBERRY 



of the Rocky Mountains, wild plants supply an 

 agreeable, refreshing fruit to thousands. The 

 buffalo-berry is an excellent hedge plant. 



The fruits vary greatly in season, size, qual- 

 ity, and may be either red or yellow, their 

 plasticity in the wild indicating a possibility 

 of improvements in the hands of 

 man. In the wild, the bushes are 

 loaded, making it appear that the 

 crop would be prodigious, but the 

 small size keeps the yield low; 

 and, under cultivation, the plants 

 are not so loaded. Very good 

 sauces, jellies, and conserves are 

 made from buffalo-berries, and, as 

 the writer has found on the plains 

 of Utah, after the fruit has been 

 touched with frost, which alleviates 

 the austerity, the berries are pleas- 

 ant to eat out of hand. The crop 

 may be harvested in late fall, or 

 even in winter, if spared by birds. 

 The berries retain their sprightly 

 flavor when dried, the cured fruits being a 

 favorite fruit of the western Indians. 



Attempts to cultivate the buffalo-berry are 

 by no means new. Oakes, Fuller, Green, 

 Crozier, Card, Corbett, Hoskins, and Hansen, 

 all men prominent in horticulture in America, 

 have tried to popularize this fruit by word 

 or deed without pronounced success. N. E. 

 Hansen of the South Dakota Experiment Sta- 

 tion, Brookings, South Dakota, at one time 

 had as many as 7500 seedlings under observa- 

 tion, yet even with this attempt on a large 

 scale, it cannot be said that the buffalo-berry 

 has been placed among domesticated fruits. 



THE GOUMI 



Closely related to the buffalo-berry in the 

 oleaster family is the goumi, belonging to the 

 genus Elaeagnus. Shepherdia has dioecious 

 flowers, eight stamens, and opposite leaves; 

 whereas Elaeagnus has perfect flowers, four 

 stamens, and alternate leaves; these being the 

 only noteworthy differences. There are some 

 forty or more species of Elaeagnus, of which 

 but one, now to be described, is noteworthy 

 for the fruits. 



Elaagnus multiflora, Thunb. Fig. 324. Goumi. 

 A low, bushy shrub with grayish or reddish-brown 

 branchlets. Leaves elliptic, ovate or obovate-oblong, 

 green above, silvery beneath, with stellate hairs above, 

 becoming glabrous, and sprinkled with dark-brown scales 

 beneath, 1-2% inches long. Flowers small, fragrant, 

 yellow within, silvery and scurfy on the outside ; usually 

 solitary in the axils. Fruit oblong or oval, blunt or 

 flattened at the ends, %-% inch long, orange colored or 

 reddish, with silvery white dots ; pedicels much longer 

 than the fruits ; at first very astringent but becoming 

 agreeably acid with maturity. 



The goumi grows wild in China and Japan, 

 where the fruits are in use for various culinary 

 preparations. It is a comparatively new fruit 

 in America. Ellwanger & Barry, Rochester, 

 New York, introduced it about 1889, since 

 which time it has been offered by nurserymen 

 chiefly as an ornamental. 



The plant is hardy in eastern United States, 



and not more difficult to propagate and man- 

 age in the garden than other bush-fruits. 

 Propagation is by cuttings or seed. The fruits 

 ripen in midsummer, are most attractive in 

 appearance, and are borne in great profusion. 

 While too acid for dessert, the product is 



324. Goumi. 



adapted to all culinary preparations for which 

 the cranberry is used. There are no garden 

 varieties offered as yet, but no doubt selection 

 could be made where the culture of the plant 

 is desirable. Should the goumi prove adapted 

 to the dry or cold regions of the Great Plains, 

 it might make a more desirable fruit than the 

 smaller-fruited buffalo-berry. Wherever it 

 thrives, it is well worth growing as an orna- 

 mental. 



THE BARBERRY 



Berberis, a genus of about 175 species in the 

 temperate zones of five continents, is rich in 

 potentialities for pomology, as many wild bar- 

 berries furnish edible fruits, while some half 

 dozen species are more or less cultivated in 

 different parts of the world. The genus be- 

 longs to the barberry or Berberidaceae family, 

 of which it is the type; there are no other 

 noteworthy genera, although the closely re- 

 lated Mahonia furnishes two or three orna- 

 mental species, the fruits of which are edible; 

 and the quite distinct Podophyllum is the 

 mandrake or may-apple of eastern woods. The 

 genus has several very distinctive characters, 

 which make its species easily recognizable. 



Berberis. Spiny shrubs with yellow wood and inner 

 bark. Leaves alternate, deciduous or evergreen, simple. 

 Flowers borne in racemes, fascicles or solitary, usually 

 yellow ; sepals 6, roundish, with 2-6 bractlets outside ; 

 petals 6, obovate, concave, usually smaller than the 

 sepals, with 2 glandular spots above the claw ; stamens 

 6, irritable ; stigma circular, depressed ; ovary superior. 

 Fruit a berry, with 1-several oblong seeds. 



Of the many barberries, at least the follow- 

 ing are recorded as furnishing fruit to be found 

 in the markets of the world from wild or cul- 

 tivated plants: B. angulosa, Wall., is a rare 

 Himalayan species with large fruits; the Pepal 

 barberry, B. aristata, DC., produces purple 

 fruits which in India are dried in the sun as 

 raisins and used as dessert; the fruit of the 

 Asiatic barberry, B. asiatica, Roxb., is said to 

 make the finest of raisins in India, and is 



