Berberis oiwakensis Chinese hollygrape

Chinese hollygrape, Green Library. Sairus Patel, 16 Dec 2024

Shrub, or small, multi-trunked tree to 12 ft tall, with 2-foot long, pinnately compound leaves, each with up to 40 barbed leaflets. Yellow flowers in erect clusters at branch tips in midwinter; blue berries later on. See in Hummingbird Garden, the left side of entrance to Green Library’s East Wing. It used to grow in courtyard on north side of the School of Education.

Illustrations: gallery.

Name derivation: Mahonia – for Bernard M’Mahon (1775–1816), horticulturalist and author of The American Gardener’s Calendar; lomariifolia – leaves like the fern genus Lomaria.