The Probert Encyclopaedia of Nature

BARBERRY

Barberry is a genus of shrubs, of the order Berberidaceae. The common barberry (Berberis vulgaris) also known as Berbery and Pipperidge Bush is a bush growing to about three metres tall. The stems are woody, upright and branched, smooth, slightly grooves, brittle with a white pith and covered wish an ash-coloured bark. The leaves are alternate, three centimetres long, shortly petioled and present various graduations from leaves into spines into which they transform in the succeeding year. The flowers are small, pale yellow and arranged in pendulous racemes. For a long time farmers in Europe maintained that a barberry bush planted near a field of wheat would blight the wheat. Actually a fungus which attacks barberry throws off spores which do attack wheat.
Research Barberry