LXXXIIL— THE BARBERRY. 
Berberis vulgaris Linne. 
T he genus Berberis comprises about a hundred species, or nearly eight-ninths of 
those in the Family Berberidace^e. The Family includes herbaceous perennial 
plants, although the Barberries are all shrubby. The leaves in all the Family are 
scattered ; but they may either be simple, as in the true Barberries, or compound, 
as in the sub-genus Mahonia, the species of which are sometimes known as 
American Hollies. The flowers are in racemes and are perfect and polysymmetric, 
their parts being in multiples of two, three, or four, but never of five. There are 
two whorls of petaloid sepals, two of “ honey-leaves ” or nectariferous petals, and 
two of stamens. The anthers in most members of the Family burst inwards by two 
valves, which coil upward and carry the pollen with them. There is only one 
carpel which contains two or more ovules and may form either a baccate or a 
capsular fruit ; and the seeds are albuminous with a straight embryo. 
The Family belongs mostly to the Temperate regions of the Northern 
Hemisphere ; but the genus Berberis is well represented in the mountains of 
sub-tropical Asia and in the Andes both Temperate and Tropical. The Family does 
not, however, extend into South Africa or Australasia. 
The roots of the Common Barberry {Berberis vulgaris Linne) have been used, 
with lye, as a yellow dye, and the wood of the stem is of a bright yellow colour. A 
yellow bitter extractive known as Berberine is obtained from the root and from 
the bark and has purgative properties similar to those of rhubarb. Its former use 
in jaundice was doubtless based on the doctrine of signatures ; but its bitterness 
may indicate some real utility in fevers. The young leaves are acid and astringent 
and contain free malic acid, as do also the berries. It is said that birds do not eat 
the latter ; but this is probably only true of some species of birds. A pleasant 
preserve is often made from the berries, which are also sometimes pickled, a 
seedless variety being preferably employed for these purposes. 
The shrub, which may be six, eight, or even twenty feet in height, bears long 
and short shoots, the primary scattered leaves on the former being metamorphosed 
into spines, usually tripartite but sometimes five or seven. The short shoots are 
axillary, bearing tufted leaves and terminal pendulous racemes of flowers, or 
elongating later into long shoots. The leaves are an inch or more in length, 
obovate and spinously toothed, and the blade is so articulated to the very short 
petiole as to suggest an ancestral compound leaf like that of Mahonia. The high 
polish of the leaves has suggested a possible origin of the name Berberis which 
Brunfels seems to have adapted from the Arabic. In that language “ Berberys ” is 
said to be the name of the fruit of this species ; but the Phoenician “ Barbar ” signifies 
a brilliant polish, and there is a Greek word fiep^epi, berberi, meaning a pearl-oyster. 
