Berberis haematocarpa, Woot.Wooton, Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club 25: 304. 1898. with the common names red barberry, red Mexican barbery, Colorado barberry and Mexican barberry, is a species in the Barberry family in southwestern North America. It is also sometimes called algerita,Flora of North America @ efloras.org: Berberis haematocarpa but that name is more often applied to its relative, Mahonia trifoliolata.
Distribution and habitat The shrub is native to the southwestern United States and northern Mexico at elevations of . It grows on rocky slopes and canyons of mountains, in Pinyon-juniper woodlands, grasslands, and desert chaparral. It is found on slopes and mesas in Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Texas, and Sonora. It is also native to sky island habitats of the Mojave Desert in California and southwestern Nevada. Jepson eFlora (TJM2) treatment of Berberis haematocarpa
Description Berberis haematocarpa is a shrub growing up to tall, with stiff and erect branches.
It has thick, rigid pinnate leaves of several centimeters long. Each is made up of a few thick 3-7 lance-shaped leaflets with very spiny toothed edges. They are a glaucus whitish-gray in color, due to a thick cuticle of wax.
The inflorescences bear 3 to 5 bright yellow flowers, each with nine sepals and six petals all arranged in whorls of three. The plant blooms from February to June.Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center Native Plant Information Network (NPIN): Mahonia haematocarpa (Red barberry, Algerita, Red Oregon-grape)
The fruit is a juicy, edible deep red to purplish-red berry, spherical and up to across.Laferriere, J.E. Berberidaceae, Barberry Family. Journal of the Arizona-Nevada Academy of Science 26:2-4. 1992.Flora of North America vol 3.
Taxonomy The compound leaves place this species in the group sometimes segregated as the genus Mahonia, and classified as Mahonia haematocarpa. USDA: Mahonia haematocarpa NatureServe Explorer.org: Comprehensive Species Report — Mahonia haematocarpa (Woot.) FeddeLoconte, H., & J. R. Estes. 1989. Phylogenetic systematics of Berberidaceae and Ranunculales (Magnoliidae). Systematic Botany 14:565-579.Marroquín, Jorge S., & Joseph E. Laferrière. 1997. Transfer of specific and infraspecific taxa from Mahonia to Berberis. Journal of the Arizona-Nevada Academy of Science 30(1):53-55.Laferrière, Joseph E. 1997. Transfer of specific and infraspecific taxa from Mahonia to Berberis. Bot. Zhurn. 82(9):96-99.
Uses Native Americans of the Apache tribe used the plant's wood shavings for a yellow dye and as a traditional eye medicine, and it's fresh and preserved fruit for food. University of Michigan at Dearborn: Native American Ethnobotany of Berberis haematocarpa
References
External links Calflora Database: Berberis haematocarpa (red fruited mahonia) UC Photos gallery: Berberis haematocarpa