18 EVERGREEN BERBERRIES CULTIVATED IN GBEAT BRITAIN. 



28. The CHAFFY-STEMMED Berberry. 



Berberis glumacea, Spreng., Syst., ii. 120. Lindl., in the 

 Botanical Register, t. 1426 — alias Mahonia glumacea, 

 De Cand., Syst., ii. 18 — alias Berberis nervosa, Bat. 

 Mag., t. 3949. 



Found in shady pine-woorls at the mouth of the Columbia, in 

 N.W. America, where it is common. 



This well-known plant is scarcely larger now, in the Garden 

 of the Horticultural Society, than it was twenty years ago. It 

 forms a close bush, about a foot high, and produces every year 

 an abundance of upright racemes of pale yellow flowers, suc- 

 ceeded by globular purple berries, covered by a fine bloom. 

 Their taste is austere and acid. The species derives its name 

 from its stem being covered by the long persistent lanceolate 

 scales of the leaf-buds, which continue to clothe the stem like 

 coarse chaff' for many years. (Something of the same kind 

 occurs in Fortune's Chinese Berberry.) 



The leaves are nearly 18 inches long, and bear about 6 pairs 

 of sessile leaflets, quite similar in form to those of B. nepalensis, 

 pale green on both sides, lucid on the under, with a reddish 

 petiole. 



In many books this is called Berberis nervosa, its leaves 

 having been joined with the flowers of B. aquifolium to make a 

 monster, upon which Pursh conferred that name. As there is 

 no such plant as a Berberry with the leaves of one species and 

 the flowers of another, it is clear that the name was given to a 

 nonentity, and must be cancelled. I cannot understand the 

 reasoning by which the name of B. nervosa is sought to be 

 retained. 



In the ' Botanical Register ' it is remarked that, although per- 

 fectly hardy, this little plant cannot bear that the extremity of 

 its shoots should be removed. It seems to have little power of 

 developing new axillary buds if the terminal one is destroyed ; 

 so that, if injured, it either dies outright or remains in a stunted 

 state. 



29. The NEPAL ASH-LEAVED Berberry. 



Berberis nepalensis, Wallich, Catalogue, No. 1480 — alias 

 Mahonia nepalensis, De Cand., Systema, ii. 21 — alias 

 Berberis pinnata, Roxb., Fl. Ind., ii. 184. 



A native of the mountains of Northern India, extending as far 

 to the eastward as the Munipoor country, according to Rox- 

 burgh. 



Little is yet known of the habits of this fine plant. It exists 



