596 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



from Barbary, in Africa, does not harmonize well with what is 

 known of the plant's distribution. 



To return, then, to the Latin form, however it may have origi- 

 nated, we find it giving rise to the English berberry in a manner 

 suggestive of adaptation to a new linguistic environment. By a 

 somewhat similar process have probably arisen from the same 

 original the form pepperidge, pipperage, piperidge, and piprage, 

 by which the plant is popularly known in parts of England and 

 Ireland. The ease with which the closely similar sounds b and p 

 can pass one into the other, taken in connection with the obvious 

 resemblance of the barbery fruit to small red peppers, doubtless 

 gave direction here to the obscure forces which bring about the 

 corruption of words. 



The same Latin root makes its appearance in several names 

 used in Germany. Thus, among those given by Adelung (1774) 

 are Berbeisze, Berbis, Berwiize. The name most commonly met 

 with in modern books is Berberitze, which, in view of the cir- 

 cumstance that ritzen means to scratch (apropos of the spines), 



surely looks like another case of 

 assimilation, analogous to what we 

 found in English. That the Ger- 

 mans are fond of embodying in 

 their names of this plant some ref- 

 erence to its more or less obvi- 

 ous qualities or uses is sufficiently 

 proved by the following list gath- 

 ered from various lexicons: Sau- 

 erdorn (sour thorn), Essigdorn 

 (vinegar thorn), Weinschierling 

 (wine hemlock), Weinnaglein,winQ 

 clove), Weinduglein (wine eye), 

 Kreuzdorn (cross thorn), and so on. 

 In French, besides the older ber- 

 bere, and the form berberis, which 

 is in common use to-day, we have 

 epine-vinette, which Littrd consid- 

 ers may have been given to the 

 plant either because of its clusters 

 of berries, resembling grapes, or 

 because a sort of tart berry wine is made from them, or else be- 

 cause of its acidity, vinette being in many provinces the name of 

 sorrels, sour grapes, and the like. This last supposition would 

 make the name a counterpart of the German Sauerdorn. 



The Spanish berberis and the Italian berberi do not, of course, 

 call for any special explanation. Without Attempting to make a 

 complete list of the names which have been applied to this plant, 



FIG. 2. BERBERIS VTILGARIS. A leaf ro- 

 sette and flower cluster. 



