the.com/barberry
a thorny berry that fires its pollen like a spring-loaded crossbow at insects
means A spiny shrub of the genus Berberis bearing small, tart red berries, sometimes used in cooking and preserves.
from From Medieval Latin barbaris, the source also of Old French berberis, which gave English the word in the late Middle Ages. The name has nothing to do with 'berry' — that resemblance is a happy coincidence of English ears reshaping the foreign sound. The deeper root is genuinely uncertain; it may trace back through Arabic to a word for the plant, but scholars treat that as plausible rather than proven.
- explosive aim
- stamens snap inward when a bee touches them
- wheat villain
- hosts the fungus behind devastating wheat stem rust
- banned beauty
- outlawed in farm states for spreading crop disease
- glowing bark
- yellow inner wood once dyed wool and leather
- berberine punch
- its compound rivals some drugs for blood sugar
japanese barberry — berberis thunbergii, invasive shrub now covering thousands of acres across northeastern us forests
oregon grape — mahonia aquifolium, native barberry species used as official state flower of oregon since 1892
common barberry — berberis vulgaris, historically eradicated from us by 1950s to control wheat rust disease