Barberry commonly known as berbery, European barberry,holy thorn and sowberry.
Barberry is thorny plant with red orange fruit like berries. It is a
deciduous scrubby shrub with gray yellow grooved stem and yellow roots.
It bears three pronged spines and toothed leaves with yellow flowers and
oval red fruits. Its leaves are about two inches long and one-third wide.
This plant herb goes 1-5 m tall with thorny shoots. The deciduous species
(b.vulgaris, berberis thunbergii) are noted for good autumn color, the
leaves turn pink or red before falling. In some evergreen species in
china, leaves turn white making it more attractive.
The flowers grow singly or in more numbers up to 20 on one flower head.
They are red or yellow orange of about 3-6mm long.
The small fruit berry is 5-15mm long, ripening red or dark blue often
with a pink or violet waxy surface bloom.