Alpine flora of the Canadian Rocky Mountains

Chapter 23: Berberidaceæ Barberry Family

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About This Book

A concise field manual that surveys the alpine and subalpine plants encountered along the Canadian Rockies and the Selkirks accessible by the trans-mountain railway, emphasizing distinct regional assemblages and plant adaptations to differences in moisture and exposure. Species are arranged by botanical families with general keys to families and genera; treatments include ferns, conifers, shrubs and the majority of herbaceous flowering plants while excluding grasses, sedges, and willows. Descriptions are accompanied by plates, watercolour illustrations and photographs, and the text relates local taxa to comparable mountain floras while noting characteristic species, habitats and elevational ranges.

Berberidaceæ
Barberry Family

Shrubs or herbs with alternate or basal leaves, with or without stipules, and solitary or racemed, mostly terminal flowers; sepals and petals generally overlapping in several series; stamens as many as the petals and opposite them; flowers perfect.

Berberis aquifolium Pursh. Trailing Mahonia.

A smooth, trailing shrub. Leaves petioled, pinnate, leaflets 3—7, ovate or oval, oblique, obtuse, truncate or slightly cordate at the base, sessile thick, persistent, finely veiny, 1—2 inches long, with spine-bearing teeth. Flowers yellow, in several erect, dense, terminal racemes; berry globose, blue or purple.

A straggling shrub with spiny glossy dark green leaves, which change to beautiful tints of scarlets and yellows during midsummer and autumn. Frequent in the Rockies in woods; flowering in June.