18 BERBEEiDACE^. [BerheTis. 



Perennial, never annual plants, indigenous to the colder ov alpine regions of 

 Europe, Asia and America, with deeply palmate or imiltifid leaves like those of 

 some Ranunculi, and dark blue sometimes pale yellow flowers in terminal 

 racemes. Many but not all of the species are acrid narcotic poisons of great 

 virulence, owing to the presence of aconitin, a vegetable alkaloid of tremendously 

 fatal energy. 



*1. A. Napellus, L. Common Wolf's-lane, or Monk's-hood. 

 " Upper sepal arched at the hack, spur of the nectary nearly- 

 conical hent clown, wings of the stamens cuspidate or none, lobes 

 of the leaves cuneate pmnatifid." — Br. Fl. p. 13. E. B. t. 2730. 



In wet thickets and by streams ; very rare and not indigenous. Fl. May — 

 August. If. 



In some plenty by thebrook (Newtown river) between Newbridge and Mill Green 

 or Upper ©albourne mill, pointed out by my friend the Rev. James Penfold .'.'.' 

 Sparingly in a wet thicket by the Medina just out of Newport, G. Kirkpatrick, 

 Esq. .'.'.' 



Germens commonly .3, rarely more (Gaudin says he never saw 5), the two infe- 

 rior ca/j/a:-seKments extremely unequal, sometimes there are 3, and usually a few 

 coloured scales (abortive filaments) betweeu the calyx and stamens. The species 

 is extremely variable according to soil, elevation, &c., and has been split into 

 several others by continental botanists. It has been cultivated amongst us from 

 time immemorial ; it is therefore not surprising that it should occur spontane- 

 ously in situations analogous to its native places of growth ; the wonder only is 

 that it should have escaped notice until within these few years in the many sta- 

 tions now recorded, as it cannot be imagined that its tendency to become natu- 

 ralized was less foi-merly than at present. 



Order II. BERBEEIDACE^, Vent. 



A small order of shrubs or herbs, with compound, usually exsti- 

 pulate leaves and an imbricated aestivation. Sepals 3 — 4 — 6, 

 mostly in a double row, often coloured, and subtended by petaloid 

 bracts. Petals hypogynous, equal or double in number to the 

 sepals, often with glands or hollow appendages below on their 

 inner side. Stamens as many as the petals, and opposite to them ; 

 anthers 2-celled, each cell opening by a valve or hd from bottom 

 to top. Ovary 1 -celled; ovules anatropous, attached laterally at 

 the base of the cell. Fruit baccate or capsular. Seeds few or 

 many ; embryo straight in the axis of the firm albumen. 



I. Beeberis, Linn. Barberry. 



Calyx of 6 deciduous, concave, coloured sepals, subtended by 2 

 or more petaloid scales or bracts. Petals 6, usually with a pair 

 of glands on the inner side of each, near the claw. Berry 1 -celled, 

 2 — 3 seeded. 



Prickly, rarely unarmed shrubs, with yellow bark and wood, the scattered, fas- 

 cicled or pinnate leaves mostly without stipules, and the primary ones reduced to 

 simple or triple acicular spines. Flowers yellow. Bark astringent ; leaves and 

 fruit acid and refrigerant. 



The Barberries are natives of temperate and mountain regions in Europe, Asia 

 and North and South America. 



