390 Bush-Fruits 



substitute for a modern description of the plant that given 

 by Gerarde in 1597. He says: "The barberry plant is an 

 high shrub or bush, having many young straight shoots 

 and branches very full of white prickly thorns, the rind 

 whereof is smooth and thin, the wood itself yellow: the 

 leaves are long, very greene, sleightly nicked about the 

 edges, and of a soure taste: the flours be yellow, standing 

 in clusters upon long stems: in their places come up long 

 berries, slender, red when they be ripe, with a little hard 

 kernell or stone within, of a soure and sharp taste: the 

 root is yellow, disperseth it self far abroad, and is of a 

 wooddy substance. Wee have in our London gardens 

 another sort, whose fruit is like in form and substance, 

 but one berry is as big as three of the common kinde, 

 wherein consisteth the difference. We have likewise 

 another without any stone, the fruit is like the rest of the 

 Barberries both in substance and taste." 



In regard to its distribution, Gerarde says: "The bar- 

 berry bush grows of it selfe in untoiled places and desart 

 grounds, in woods and the borders of fields, especially 

 about a gentlemans house called Mr. Monke, at a village 

 called Tver two miles from Colebrooke, where most of the 

 hedges are nothing else but Barberry bushes. They are 

 planted in most of our English gardens." 



Among "The Vertues" ascribed to the plant, the fol- 

 lowing are of special interest. "The leaves are used of 

 divers to season meat with, and instead of a sallad, as be 

 those of Sorrell." After enumerating various medicinal 

 "vertues" he adds: "A conserve made of the fruit and 

 sugar performeth all. those things before remembered, 

 & with better force and successe." 



