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Wild flowers of the north-eastern states

Chapter 4: BARBERRY FAMILY. BERBERIDACEÆ.
By Ellen Miller
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Nature/Gardening/Animals

About This Book

This illustrated manual gathers 308 common wildflowers of the northeastern United States, each drawn life-size and accompanied by plain-language descriptions emphasizing habit, color, and growth rather than technical dissection. Organized by floral families in the sequence of Gray's Manual and arranged for seasonal bloom, entries include leaves, stems, and often whole growth, with occasional shrubs, vines, and fruit shown where notable. Aimed at amateur naturalists, it favors recognizable traits and folk names to ease identification, offers practical notes on variations and habitat, and pairs accurate botanical classification with accessible, pictorial presentation.

BARBERRY FAMILY.
BERBERIDACEÆ.

Barberry.Berberis vulgaris.

Found on hilly pastures, in roadside thickets, during May and June.

A shrub, which grows from 3 to 5 or more feet in height, and branches thickly; it is armed with many needle-like spines, and the bark is gray.

The leaf is a small oval with a rounded tip, its edge beset with many short sharp spines; its fibre is tough, and surface very smooth, and the color is a light bluish-green. The arrangement is in rosette-like groups of 5 or more leaves.

The small flower has 6 rounding, concave, yellow petals, a 6-parted calyx, and 6 stamens which curve outward from the circular green pistil and rest their tips in the hollows of the petals. The flowers grow in drooping clusters, hanging from the leafy rosettes all along the ends of the branches with a graceful gesture.

The fruit, ripe in September and October, is an oval red berry, sour and puckering to the taste. The wood is a strong yellow color, and the roots gleam in the freshly turned soil like pieces of gold in the dark earth. In some parts of the country the berries are made into a preserve, and the wood is used for dyeing.