24 BERBERIDACEiE. Berberis. 



Order II. BERBERIDACE^!. 



Shrubs or herbs, mostly "with compound or divided alternate leaves, and no stip- 

 ules ; the flowers all perfect, with the parts distinct and hypogynous, remarkable 

 for having the bracts, sepals, petals, and stamens (in ours six) before each other 

 instead of alternating (an anomaly which comes from there being two whorls 

 of each, three pieces in a whorl), and the 2-celled anthers opening by uplifted 

 valves, hinged at the top. — Calyx and corolla imbricated in the bud, deciduous, 

 both usually colored. Pistil one, simple, i. e. of a sirjgle carpel : style short or 

 none. Seeds anatropous, with a small or minute embryo in copious firm-fleshy or 

 horny albumen. — Achlys is a most exceptional genus, having no calyx nor corolla, 

 and 9 or more stamens. 



A small order of a dozen genera (and half as many more of the Lardizabulcm appended to it, 

 not here taken into view), of which only Berberis is numerous in species, most of the others having 

 only one or two species each, chiefly natives of temperate regions, and of the northern hemisphere, 

 with a few in S. America. The juice is watery, but the iimer bark and wood of the Barberry 

 yellow. No active properties, except in Podophyllum of the Atlantic States, the root of which 

 yields podophyllin, a powerful cathartic. The fruits, when berries, are innocent and edible, but 

 sometimes acid. 



* Flowers complete : stamens 6, mostly short. 



1. Berberis. Flowers yellow, in clustered racemes. Fruit a few-seeded berry. Shrubs with 



rigid leaves, in ours odd-pinnate. 



2. Vancouveria. Flowers whitish, in a raceme or panicle. Fruit a follicle. Herb, with ter- 



nately compound leaves all radical. 



* * Flowers naked : stamens 9 or more, slender. 



3. Achlys. Flowers spicate on a scape, without bracts, sepals, or petals. Herb, with only 



radical 3-parted leaves. 



1. BERBERIS, Linn. 



Sepals 6, petal-like, with 3 or 6 closely appressed bractlets in 1 or 2 rows. 

 Petals 6, opposite the sepals, usually 2-glandular at base. Stamens 6. Carpel 1 : 

 stigma circular and peltate. Fruit a berry, with 1 to 3 erect seeds. ■ — Smooth 

 shrubs with yellow wood, pinnate or fascicled simple leaves, yellow flowers in clus- 

 tered bracteate racemes, and oblong or globose acid berries. 



A genus of about 50 species,' belonging to both continents, but largely S. American. In 

 Berberis proper, of which B. vulgaris, Linn. , the common Barberry, is the type, the primary 

 leaves are reduced to mere spines, in the axils of which are fascicles of actual simple leaves with 

 jointed petioles. All our species belong to the section Mahonia, Nutt, which has evergreen 

 unequally pinnate leaves, sessile spinulosely dentate leaflets, and dark blue globose berries. 



* Leaflets pinnately veined. 



1. B. repens, Lindl. A low somewhat procumbent shrub, less than a foot 

 high : leaflets 3 to 7, ovate, acute, not acuminate, 1 to 2| inches long, not shiny 

 above: racemes few, terminating the stems, 1 to 1|- inches long. — Bot. Peg. t. 

 1176. B. Aquifolium, Pursh, mainly, and of numerous authors. 



" Throughout the State," extending northward to British Columbia and eastward to Colorado 

 and New Mexico. 



2. B. Aquifolium, Pursh. A shrub 2 to 6 feet high : leaflets usually 7, but 

 often more, the lower pair distant from the stem, ovate to oblong-lanceolate, li to 

 4 inches long, acuminate, green and shining above, sinuately dentate with numer- 

 ous spinose teeth : racemes 1-Jr to 2 inches long, clustered chiefly in the subter- 

 minal axils; fruit nearly globose. — Lindl. Bot. Peg. t. 1425. 



