Hook.f.
Description
Berberis virescens is a deciduous Himalayan barberry distributed through Nepal, northern India, Bhutan and southern Tibet, the numerous additional GBIF country codes reflecting its long cultivation in botanic gardens of Europe, North America and East Asia. In the wild it occupies open slopes, forest edges, scrub and clearings in the temperate zone, generally between 2,500 and 3,500 m. The vouchered plants derive from Wangdue in Bhutan at about 1,900 m in June and from Sheno-Okrini in the Helambu of Nepal at around 2,200 m in May, within the lower part of its montane range where it flowers in late spring.
The species is a shrub up to about 2 m tall with reddish young shoots that become greenish, giving the epithet, and bearing simple, often three-parted spines at the nodes. The leaves are obovate to narrowly spathulate, thin-textured and clustered on short shoots, with entire or sparsely spinulose margins and a glaucous lower surface. The flowers are yellow, borne in few-flowered fascicles or short racemes, with the typical Berberis arrangement of six sepals, six petals and six stamens that snap inward on contact. The fruit is an ellipsoid to oblong berry, red ripening to blackish and often pruinose, containing a few seeds.
Berberis is a large, taxonomically intricate genus in which species are separated by spine, leaf, inflorescence and berry characters; B. virescens is recognised by its green twigs and red autumn fruit. Like its relatives it is an alternate host for rust fungi and a source of the alkaloid berberine. The species is widespread, hardy and frequently grown ornamentally, and is not considered to be of conservation concern.
Author: Hook.f. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 19 (Berberidaceae), Grierson & Long: Flora of Bhutan Vol. 1, Ahrendt: Berberis and Mahonia, A Taxonomic Revision