BEEBEEIDE^;. I 



with one or more short branches at base : sepals obovate, concave : petal 

 with rhombic-ovate acute limb and almost filiform claw : stamens 25 — 30; 

 filaments filiform or slightly thickened under the roundish anthers: 

 berries obliquely oval, as large as peas, the polished and shining surface 

 cherry-red, or occasionally snow-white. — Wooded northward slopes 

 under hazel bushes, etc. Feb. — April. 



Order II. BERBERIDE/E. 



Shrubs or herbs with alternate or radical usually compound leaves. 

 Sepals and Petals 3 or 6 each. Stamens 6 or 9, hypogynous; anthers 

 opening by valves hinged at top. Pistil 1. Fruit a berry or a 1-celled 

 capsule. , 



1. BERBERIS, Brunfete (Oregon Grape. Barberry). Ours low 

 evergreen shrubs, with unequally pinnate coriaceous prickly leaves, and 

 yellow inner bark and wood. Flowers yellow, in clustered terminal and 

 axillary racemes. Sepals 6, subtended by 3 or more bractlets. Petals 6, 

 opposite the sepals. Stamens 6. Berries (in ours) dark blue and 

 glaucous. 



1. B. nervosa, Pursh. Simple, the stem 1 ft. high or less, at summit 

 bearing a crown of very large leaves, and many dry persistent chaffy 

 bracts: leaves 1 — 2 ft. long; leaflets 11 — 17, ovate, acuminate, somewhat 

 palmately nerved: racemes elongated: berries ovoid. — In deep woods 

 near the coast. 



2. B. pin nut it, Lag. Branching 1 — 6 ft. high: leaflets 7 — 9 very 

 prickly, the lowest pair near the base of the petiole : racemes profuse, 

 clustered in the axils of all the leaves, as well as terminal: fr. ovoid. — 

 Bocky hills; common. April, May. 



2. VANCOUVERIA, Morr. & Dcsne. Perennial. Leaves all radical, 

 2 — 3-ternate. Scapes racemose or paniculate; the flowers small, nodding. 

 Sepals 6, obovate, reflexed, subtended by 6 — 9 small bracts. Petals 6, 

 deflexed, but with cucullate-incurved tips. Stamens 6, erect, closely 

 appressed to the pistil. Carpel 1; ovules 10 or fewer, in two rows along 

 the suture. Capsule dehiscent by a dorsal valve. 



1. V. parviflora, Greene. More or less villous with brownish hairs, 

 1 ft. high or more: leaves dark green, coriaceous, enduring through the 

 year; leaflets 1 in. broad, petiolulate, subcordate, obtusely 3-lobed, 

 emarginate: fl. small, 25 — 50 in a panicle, white, or with a lavender 

 tinge: ovary glabrous. — Wooded hills at considerable elevations, both 

 back of Oakland and in Marin Co. April, May. 



