80 BERBERIDACE.-E. 



Berry oblong or globular. Seeds 1 to 9, erect, oblong, 

 with a crustaceous testa and a narrow raphe. Embryo in the 

 axis and occupying nearly the whole length of corneous- 

 fleshy albumen, straight or nearly so : radicle slender, infe- 

 rior : cotyledons elliptical, fiat and nearly foliaceous, parallel 

 with the raphe, shorter than or equalling the radicle in length. 



Shrubs, with yellow wood and inner bark, deciduous or 

 persistent 1 - many-lbliolate alternate leaves ; their petioles 

 dilated at the base. Stipules adnale, commonly minute, 

 caducous. Leaflets articulated, veiny, usually spinulose- 

 toothed or ciliate-serrate. Flowers yellow, racemose. 



Etymology. From the Arabic name of the berries of the Barberry. 

 Properties. These well-known berries are pleasantly acid and astrin- 

 gent. The yellow bark and wood furnishes a dye, and is astringent, and 

 seems also, with the root, to contain a principle (berberine) which is cathartic. 

 Division. To the two recognized subgenera, I may here add a third. 

 § 1. Bereeris proper. — Filaments usually inappendiculate. Primary 

 leaves mostly converted into triple, quintuple, or simple prickly spines ; 

 the secondary fascicled in the axils of these, unifoliolate (articulated 

 above the scale-like base which represents the real petiole), subsessile. 



§2. Trilicina. — Filaments inappendiculate. Unarmed: leaves all evo- 

 lute, digitately 3-foliolate : leaflets sessile on the apex of the common 

 petiole. (B. trifoliolata, Moric.) 



§3. Mahonia, Nutl. — Filaments appendiculate with two salient teeth 

 at the apex. Unarmed : leaves all evolute, pinnately 5 - 17-foliolate. 



PLATE 31. Bereeris Canadensis, Pursh; — part of flowering stem, 

 natural size, from the Cambridge Botanic Garden. 



1. Diagram of the flower (the upper side belongs next the axis). 



2. A flower, enlarged. 



3. An outer sepal; 4, an inner sepal, enlarged. 



5. A petal, enlarged ; inside view. 



6, 7. Stamens, enlarged ; the latter with the anther dehiscent. 

 8. Ovary transversely, and 9, vertically divided, magnified. 



10. Berries, from a wild specimen. (Mountains of North Carolina.) 



11. Vertical section of a berry, enlarged. 



12. Magnified section of the seed and embryo. 



13. Magnified embryo, turned flatwise, to show the broad cotyledons. 



