Berberis insignis Hook. f. & Thoms.

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Credits

Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles

Recommended citation
'Berberis insignis' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/berberis/berberis-insignis/). Accessed 2024-03-27.

Other taxa in genus

Glossary

entire
With an unbroken margin.
lanceolate
Lance-shaped; broadest in middle tapering to point.

References

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Credits

Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles

Recommended citation
'Berberis insignis' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/berberis/berberis-insignis/). Accessed 2024-03-27.

An evergreen shrub 5 or 6 ft high, with yellowish-grey, round young shoots which are usually unarmed. Leaves solitary or three at a joint, lanceolate to narrowly oval, slender-pointed, the margins set with short spiny teeth about 18 in. apart; usually 3 to 5 in. long, 1 to 134 in. wide; dark shining green above, pale green and conspicuously veined beneath. Flowers fifteen to twenty-five clustered at one joint, each on a stalk about 12 in. long, pale golden yellow. Fruit black, oval, 13 in. long.

Native of the moist forests of Sikkim, E. Nepal, and Bhutan; introduced originally by Sir Joseph Hooker to Kew about 1850. In foliage it is one of the finest of barberries, but it is not one of the hardiest, although it survives ordinary winters at Kew without injury. It belongs to the same group as B. hookeri, but so distinct is it (1) in the size of its leaves (one of the largest amongst the true barberries as apart from the mahonias), which are often solitary at the joint, and (2) in the frequently entire absence of spines, that it is one of the most easily recognised in a difficult genus. There is a vigorous plant in the Edinburgh Botanic Garden 6 ft high and 12 ft across, raised from seed received from Darjeeling in 1923. Although the leaves are sometimes disfigured by frost, it is otherwise hardy and very free flowering. It also succeeds very well in the R.H.S. Garden at Wisley.