---

• n  any of numerous plants of the genus Berberis having prickly stems and yellow flowers followed by small red berries

• Known as invasive non-indigenous species, such garden mainstays as garlic mustard or Japanese barberry are often cultivated for their beauty and hardiness.
• In spring, they germinate, sending out small spores that infect barberry bushes.
• The rust, a fungus which destroyed 300,000,000 bushels of wheat in North America in 1916, was proved to pass part of its life cycle on barberry bushes.

News & Articles

---

• Fighting invasive plants is really annoying when you planted them in the first place
  Nature loves to blindside us humans: How else to explain that I’m now trying to uproot and destroy plants that 10 years ago I was trying to establish? In my case, it’s Japanese barberry, a thorny bush that took root in my back woods because we deliberately scattered it around to help feed birds, after buying the plants – buying! argh! – from the state agriculture folks. They sold it as part of a ...
  July 8, 2013 - The Nashua Telegraph