[Plate 57.] 



THE DARA^IN BERBERRY. 



(berberis darwinii.) 



A Hardy Evergreen Shrub, from Patagonia, belonging to the Natural Order of Berberids. 



Specific Character. 



THE DARWIN BERBERRY. — Spines radiating, five-parted, covered as well as the branches with a close rusty fur. 

 Leaves simple, evergreen, wedge-shaped, three-toothed, sometimes with another tooth or two at the side, spiny. 

 Racemes dense, pendulous. Pistil flask-shaped, narrowed at the base, with a long style. 



Berberis Darwinii; Hooker, Tcones plantarum, t. 672; Lindley, in Journal of Sort. Soc, vol. v., p. fi. 



THERE is no doubt that this most beautiful shrub must be regarded as one of the 

 best hardy evergreens that has been imported during the present century ; scarcely 

 inferior in horticultural value to a laurel or a holly. It is thus mentioned in an account of 

 Evergreen Berberries cultivated in Great Britain : — 



" Chiloe and Patagonia furnished this to Mr. T. Lobb, whose seeds have enabled 

 Messrs. V eitch and Co. to raise it. Mr. Darwin also found it in Chiloe ; Bridges in 

 Yaldivia and Osorno. 



" It forms an evergreen shrub three to five feet high; of extraordinary beauty, and 

 conspicuous for its ferruginous shoots, by which it is at once recognised. The leaves are 

 of the deepest green, shining as if polished, not more than three-quarters of an inch 

 long, pale green, with the principal veins conspicuous on the under side, with three large 

 spiny teeth at the end, and about one (or two) more on each side near the middle. 

 Although small, the leaves are placed so near together that the branches themselves are 

 concealed. The flowers are in erect racemes, and of the same deep orange-yellow as in 

 the Box-leaved species. 



S 9 



