BERBER IS, BARBERRY. 151 



one ligne long, surmounted by a flattened stigma. The pistil becomes a berry or a fleshy 

 fruit. 



The fruit grows in clusters. It's cylindrical in shape, rounded at the ends, attached 

 to the stem by a very slender stalk two to four lignes long. It terminates in a very 

 prominent small, black hilum. It's flattened lengthwise, the diameter in one direction 

 about a half ligne less than in the other. 



The skin is hard, smooth, shiny, and a beautiful red bordering on purple when the 

 fruit is extremely ripe. 



The flesh is light red and very soft. 



The juice is plentiful with a sharp, tart taste that is tempered & made quite 

 pleasant by heating & adding sugar. 



The seeds are long, very hard, light brown, black at both ends and have an acrid 

 taste. 



The fruit ripens around the beginning of November. 



When this shrub is planted in a kitchen garden or in good soil, it grows taller and 

 bushier & the fruit is bigger than when it's in hedges & in poor soil. It has clusters of 

 more than thirty berries with most of them more than six lignes long & three lignes across 

 their large diameter. 



The seedless barberry, Barberry without seed C. B. Pin. [Translator's note: 

 Caspar Bauhin Pinax, 1560-1624, an early describer of the tree] is the one that's most 

 worthwhile cultivating. Botanists look upon it as a variety of the preceding one, even 

 though it doesn't consistently retain its distinctive character. When one is transplanted 

 into a kitchen garden, it puts out vigorous shoots, and produces beautiful fruit, but each 

 berry has two seeds. Some years later when it's filled out & it's growing less vigorously, 

 most of the berries have no more than one seed. Finally, when it starts to get old it yields 

 fruit without seeds as it did before it had been transplanted. This variety is found in the 

 forest of Lyons, in several places in the Vexin Normand, & in the vicinity of Rouen. 



