Plantae > Tracheophyta > Magnoliopsida > Ranunculales > Berberidaceae > Berberis > Berberis darwinii| | Berberis darwinii (Darwin's berberis) | |
Synonyms: Berberis costulata; Berberis knightii; Berberis magellanica; Berberis stenophylla; Mahonia beali; Mahonia knightii Berberis darwinii is a species of barberry in the family Berberidaceae, native to southern Chile and Argentina and naturalized elsewhere. English common names include 'Darwin's Barberry'. Vernacular names include michay, calafate, and quelung. B. darwinii was discovered (in Western science) in South America in 1835 by Charles Darwin during the voyage of the 'Beagle'; however, the berries of this species were consumed by prehistoric native peoples in the Patagonian region over millennia. The species was one of many named in honour of Darwin. |
Berberis darwinii exists as varying habits in New Zealand from shrubs with interlaced branches, reaching 3-4m in height and 3-6m wide in the open and at the forest edge to lianoid small trees growing to about 10m and spreading 15m under the forest canopy. Dispersal is key to B. darwinii's survival. Introduced bird species act as dispersers in New Zealand. Despite being considered a shade-tolerant species it has been shown that B. darwinii actually requires high light environments to germinate. It is tolerant of both frost and drought. |
| Height [2] | 9.8 feet (3 m) | | Width [2] | 11.5 feet (3.5 m) |  | | Allergen Potential [1] | Medium-Low | | | Edible [2] | May be edible. See the Plants For A Future link below for details. | | Flower Type [2] | Hermaphrodite | | Leaf Type [2] | Evergreen | | Lifespan [3] | Perennial | | Pollinators [2] | Insects, Lepidoptera, Bats | | Structure [2] | Shrub | | Usage [2] | Plants are very amenable to trimming and can be used as a formal hedge. They also make a very good informal hedge, their long arching branches looking especially attractive when in flower or bearing fruit. The plants tolerate maritime exposure though they are slow growing;
A yellow dye is obtained from the root and bark; |
View Plants For A Future Record : Berberis darwinii |
North America; Attributes / relations provided by ♦ 1Derived from Allergy-Free Gardening OPALS™, Thomas Leo Ogren (2000) ♦ 2Plants For A Future licensed under a Creative Commons License♦ 3USDA Plants Database, U. S. Department of Agriculture ♦ 4Vázquez, D. P. 2002. Interactions among Introduced Ungulates, Plants, and Pollinators: A Field Study in the Temperate Forest of the Southern Andes. Doctoral Dissertation thesis, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee, USA. ♦ 5Jorrit H. Poelen, James D. Simons and Chris J. Mungall. (2014). Global Biotic Interactions: An open infrastructure to share and analyze species-interaction datasets. Ecological Informatics. |
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