EVERGREEN BERBERRIES CULTIVATED IN GREAT BRITAIN. 19 



at Kew and in the Garden of the Horticultural Society, but the 

 plants are very young. The dried specimens before me, from 

 Dr. Wallich's collections, have pinnated leaves a foot and more 

 in length, with 5 or 6 pairs of sessile, ovate, oblong, obliquely 

 cordate, coarsely spiny-toothed leaflets, the largest of which are 

 3 inches long and 1 inch broad. From among them rise erect, 

 simple racemes of large flowers, sometimes as much as 6 inches 

 long. The fruit is oblong and dark purple. The leaves of the 

 seedlings are glaucous on the under side. It was raised at Chis- 

 wick from seeds supplied by the East India Company. There is 

 no trace of glaucousness on the dried specimens. 



If hardy, this must be a very fine thing. An unprotected seed- 

 ling, on rock-work, has borne 14° of frost (18° Fahr.) without 

 suffering in appearance. 



30. ACANTHUS-LEAVED Berberry. 



Berberis Leschenaultii, Wallich's Catalogue, No. 1479. 

 Wight's Neilgherry Plants, p. 7, t. 8 — alias B. acanthi- 

 folia, Wallich. 



Dr. Wight says that this is found in almost every clump of 

 jungle about Ootacamund, in the Neilgherries, flowering during 

 the S. W. monsoon and at other seasons ; the fruit, which is bluish 

 purple, ripening in the dry season. What is said to be it has 

 been raised in the Royal Botanic Garden at Kew. 



As far as we know anything of this, it must be a still nobler 

 plant than B. nepalensis, its leaves being almost 18 inches long, 

 with 11 or 12 pairs of leaflets, which seem to be harder and 

 shorter, and much more closely set upon the petiole, than in B. 

 nepalensis; the fruit, too, is globular, not oblong. The plant 

 figured in Delessert's Icones, under the name of Mahonia nepal- 

 ensis, appears to belong here. 



Nothing is yet known of its capability of bearing cold ; nor is 

 it certain that we yet possess more than the name. 



31. FORTUNE'S CHINESE Berberry. 



Berberis Fortuni, Lindl., in Journal of Hort. Soc, vol. i. 

 pp. 231 and 300, with a figure. 

 From the gardens of China, introduced by the Horticultural 

 Society. 



As this has been already described in the present work, it is 

 not necessary to refer to it more particularly, especially as it has 

 not realized the expectations entertained of it. It is a plant with 

 poor foliage, not much worth cultivation even in a greenhouse 

 and out of doors inferior to all the other Ash -leaved species 

 although quite hardy. It grows 4 to 6 feet high. 



c 2 



