Mahonia × heterophylla
Credits
Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles
Recommended citation
'Mahonia × heterophylla' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.
Synonyms
Other taxa in genus
Editorial Note
Bean designates this taxon Mahonia ‘Heterophylla’, but the degree of qualification in his synonym list is striking: Mahonia ‘Heterophylla’, Berberis heterophylla Hort., not Juss, Mahonia heterophylla (Hort.) Schneid., Berberis aquifolium var. heterophylla Hort. Thibaut & Keteleer (?), Berberis (aquifolium × fortunei ?) Zab., Berberis or Mahonia toluacensis Hort. ex Bean, not Berberis toluacensis J.J.
Schneider’s Mahonia × heterophylla (if this is indeed Bean’s plant) is now regarded as synonymous with Mahonia × toluacensis (Anon.) Ahrendt, which Bean explicitly disavowed in his final synonym (see that entry). Not wishing to do anything to worsen the confusion, we simply reproduce Bean’s text verbatim below.
A shrub about 3 ft high, taller on a wall; young shoots purplish. Leaves 6 to 12 in. long, composed usually of five or seven leaflets. Leaflets lanceolate or narrowly oblong, often unequal-sided, 1 to 31⁄2 in. long, 1⁄4 to 3⁄4 in. wide, each margin set with one to ten slender teeth or sometimes entire, shining green on both sides, stalk of leaflets slender, up to 1 in. long, but sometimes absent (leaflet sessile). Flowers and fruits not freely borne.
This mahonia has been grown in gardens under the erroneous name Mahonia or Berberis “toluacensis”, but it is evidently not the plant described as Berberis toluacensis in 1869 (see below). The leaflets are usually curiously twisted or even curled, and their stalks vary much in length; one leaflet in a pair may be sessile, the other long stalked; or one leaflet of the pair may be missing. Schneider mentions Zabel’s suggestion that this mahonia might be a hybrid between M. aquifolium and M. fortunei, but this does not seem very likely. It is more likely to have been a hybrid seedling of the plant originally called Berberis toluacensis (see below). In the texture and colouring of its leaves it recalls M. ‘Undulata’ (q.v. under M. pinnata).