Berberis darwinii Hook.
Darwin's barberry
Evergreen shrub to c. 4 m high. Shoots densely clothed in brown hairs, terete or nearly so. Spines palmately 5-partite, hairy. Lvs subsessile or nearly so. Lamina 1-3-(3.5) × 0.5-1.5-(2) cm, obovate with 2 spiny apical lobes (lvs of vegetative shoots sometimes with additional spiny teeth below), glabrous, glossy dark green above; base cuneate. Infl. usually a simple pendulous raceme to c. 7 cm long, occasionally slightly paniculate. Bracts lanceolate, reddish, much < pedicels. Pedicels 5-15 mm long at anthesis, reddish. Perianth segments 5-8.5 mm long except in the much shorter outermost whorl, orange-yellow except for reddish flush on outermost segments, usually oblong or oblong-obovate; innermost whorl (petals) slightly emarginate. Nectaries inconspicuous. Stamens slightly < petals. Ovules up to 8. Style = or > ovary at anthesis. Berry 5-7 mm diam., subglobose or globose, black or nearly so, ± pruinose; fruiting style conspicuous, 1.5-3 mm long.
N.: locally common in Wellington and the Wairarapa; S.: extensively naturalised from C. Canterbury to Foveaux Strait; St.: Halfmoon Bay, very common.
S. Chile, Patagonia 1946
Remnant forest stands, scrub, along forest and plantation margins, roadsides.
FL Jan-Dec.
B. darwinii is a variable sp. with several described vars; N.Z. material can be referred to the type var. However, one collection (CHR 84316, Heretaunga, Hutt Valley, Healy 5⅜90, 21.9.1953) represents the commonly cultivated hybrid B. × stenophylla Lindley (B. darwinii × B. empetrifolia Lam.). This has long arching branches, 3-parted spines and linear-lanceolate lvs. It has frs similar to B. darwinii and sets viable seed.
