Peeoma. | I. RANUNCULACEX. 15 
or June. The variety there found is usually considered as a species (P. co- 
rallina), the name of P. officinalis being reserved for some of the garden 
Peeonies, which are however mostly varieties produced from this by culti- 
vation. The half-shrubby Moutan is a very distinct species, from China. 
The Magnolias and Tulip-trees of our plantations belong to the Mag- 
nolia family, which has no European representative. They have, like the 
Ranunculaceae, several distinct sepals, petals, stamens, and pistils, but they 
are always trees, or shrubs, their leaf-buds are enclosed in membranous 
stipules, and the carpels usually cohere in a kind of cone. 
Il. BERBERIDEZX. THE BARBERRY FAMILY. 
Shrubs or herbs, with alternate or radical leaves, and no 
stipules. Sepals and petals distinct, 2, 3, 4, 6, or 8 each, but 
never 5. Stamens the same number as the petals, and opposite 
to them. <Anthers opening by valves or lids turned upwards. 
Ovary of a single carpel, with two or more ovules attached to 
the bottom or to one side of the cavity. Seeds albuminous. 
__ A small family, spread over the temperate regions or tropical mountains 
of the globe. It is universally admitted by botanists, although the con. 
nection between the Barberry and the herbaceous genera associated with it 
appears at first sight rather artificial, These are however none of them 
British. The Hpimedium alpinum (Linn.), a native of south-eastern 
Kurope, has indeed been admitted into our Floras as growing about old 
castles, etc., but only where it had been planted. Some Japanese Hpime- 
diums are also cultivated in our gardens. 
I. BERBERIS. BARBERRY. 
Shrubs, with usually prickly leaves. Sepals 8 or 9, yellow, outer minute. 
Petals 6 in 2 series, with honeyed glands at their bases. Stamens 6. Fruit 
a. berry. 
A bttice numerous genus, chiefly Asiatic and American. Many exotic 
‘species are cultivated in our gardens, either with simple leaves, like our 
own, or belonging to a section with pinnated leaves, sometimes considered 
as a genus under the name of Mahonia. 
1, B. vulgaris, Linn. (fig. 33). Common B.—A glabrous acid pale 
green shrub with yellow wood, attaining 6 or 8 feet, the branches arched 
and hanging at the ends, armed with 3-lobed thorns at the base of the tufts 
of leaves. Leaves alternate or clustered, obovate, rather stiff, sharply toothed. 
Flowers yellow, in elegant drooping racemes, with a disagreeable smell. 
Berries small, red, oval or oblong, containing two or three seeds. 
In hedges, thickets, and open woods, over the greater part of Europe and 
temperate Asia, to the Himalaya. In Europe it extends northwards into 
Scandinavia, but has been so frequently planted, that the real limits of its 
area cannot be ascertained. Scattered over Britain, but probably not really 
indigenous, FV. spring or early summer. 
