Mahonia trifolia
Credits
Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles
Recommended citation
'Mahonia trifolia' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.
Synonyms
- Berberis schiedeana Schltdl.
- Berberis trifolia (Cham. & Schltdl.) Schult. & Schult.f.
- Mahonia schiedeana (Schltdl.) Fedde
Other taxa in genus
- Mahonia acanthifolia
- Mahonia aquifolium
- Mahonia arguta
- Mahonia bealei
- Mahonia confusa
- Mahonia fortunei
- Mahonia gracilipes
- Mahonia × herveyi
- Mahonia × heterophylla
- Mahonia japonica
- Mahonia lomariifolia
- Mahonia × media
- Mahonia napaulensis
- Mahonia nervosa
- Mahonia pinnata
- Mahonia pumila
- Mahonia repens
- Mahonia × toluacensis
Editorial Note
Treated as M. schiedeana in Bean (1981), but M. trifolia in the Supplement (Clarke 1988).
A shrub of variable habit, prostrate at high altitudes but erect and reportedly up to 15 ft high in favourable situations. Leaflets three to seven, ovate, 3⁄4 to 11⁄4 in. long, dull grey-green above, very rigid, margins undulate, with three to six spine-teeth on each side. Flowers bright yellow, produced on very short racemes (mostly 1⁄2 to 11⁄4 in. long); pedicels with bracteoles in the lower half. Fruits ovoid, blue with a pruinose bloom, up to 1⁄2 in. long.
A native of Mexico; introduced by E. K. Balls in 1938 under his seed number 4618, collected at 14,000 ft. A specimen taken from the wild plants was identified in an American herbarium as M. eutriphylla var. saxatilis, but another specimen in the Kew Herbarium, under the same number, is undoubtedly M. trifolia, and so too is the plant at Highdown in Sussex, raised by the late Sir Frederick Stern from seed number 4618. In the true M. eutriphylla the leaves have only three leaflets, all springing from the apex of the petiole; in M. trifolia a leaf may have only three leaflets, but then the terminal one is well separated by a length of rachis from the two laterals.
At Highdown M. trifolia is not completely hardy, but has attained a height of 4–5 ft and both flowers and fruits. Plants from the same seed collection grow well in Mr Hillier’s collection at Jermyns House near Romsey.
This species is portrayed in Bot. Mag., n.s., t.832. In the accompanying article Nigel Taylor points out that M. trifolia was the name originally given to this species. Later Schlechtendal illegitimately altered the specific epithet to schiedeana for fear of confusion with M. trifoliolata.
The plant figured in the Botanical Magazine was raised by Brian Mathew from seeds collected by Mrs S. Walker at about 13,000 ft on Ixtaccihuatl in the state of Mexico in 1970, and has proved hardy in a garden in North London. When ten years old it had reached a height of only 1 ft or so.