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.
| Mandrake. | Podophyllum peltatum. |
| May Apple. |
Found in woodlands during May and June.
The single stalk, 14 to 18 inches in height, bears upon its summit a pair of great leaves on forking stems; it is large, round, very hard and fibrous, juicy, smooth, and somewhat glossy; a dry, tough, pale sheath enwraps it at the foot. In color it is a very light green, almost white.
The leaves are almost a foot across and nearly circular in shape, divided into 5 or 9 wedge-shaped radiating parts which are often 2- (or more) lobed, and with as many main ribs as there are divisions; all the lesser ribs and veins are conspicuous in these highly ornamental leaves—they have shallow but sharp-pointed margins, and are rather thin in texture, smooth and glossy, and of a rich dark green color, whitened with bloom underneath. The stems are large and pale.
The flower is formed of several wedge-shaped petals (6 to 9), firm and thick of texture, showing many fine-netted veins, and dull white in color; they spread and curve about the base of the prominent greenish seed-box, the large and conspicuous stamens forming a ring in the center. The flower, on a pale stem, grows from between the leaf-stems with a distinct inclination to one side.
In bud the flower is enfolded by 3 temporary bracts,—the 6 calyx-parts also fall when the petals expand. The long rather oval fruit is found eatable by the uncritical palates of children.