BERBERIS.—BARBERRY. History

This shrub, a native of Europe, and natururalized in Asia, is found in the New England States, on the mountains of Pennsylvania and Virginia, among rocks, and in hard, gravelly soils; occasionally it is found in the West on rich grounds. It flowers from April to June, and ripens its fruit in June. “It is frequently planted in gardens and prized for the beautiful bunches of red berries which hang after the leaves have fallen. The plant is generally a shrub from 2 to 8 feet high, although Loudon is authority that ‘there are examples of trees 30 feet in height’ and that ‘they live for two or three centuries.’ The wood contains a yellow, bitter coloring matter, and is sometimes used as a dye. The flowers are in pendulous racemes and appear in May or June. The leaves are obovate, bristly serrate, tapering at the base to a very short petiole. They are agreeably acid, resembling in this respect the leaves of the Nat. Ord.—Oxalidaceæ. The French name for barberry, Epine vinette, means literally an acid thorn. The fruit is a bright scarlet berry, and has an intensely, yet agreeably acid taste. It is said to make excellent preserves; was highly esteemed by the ancients, and probably would be now, if other fruits had not been cultivated to such a degree of excellence. The name berberys seems to have been first applied to this fruit by Averroes, an Arabic writer on medicine, who wrote in the Twelfth century” (Berberidaceæ, by C. G. and J. U. Lloyd, p. 5). Barberry bark, it is stated, has been used as an adulterant of pomegranite root bark.