B. TRIFOLIOLATA (syn Mahonia trifoliolata).—Mexico, 1839. This is a very distinct and beautiful Mexican species that will only succeed around London as a wall plant. It grows about a yard high, with leaves fully 3 inches long, having three terminal sessile leaflets, and slender leaf stalks often 2 inches long. The ternate leaflets are of a glaucous blue colour, marbled with dull green, and very delicately veined. Flowers small, bright yellow, and produced in few-flowered axillary racemes on short peduncles. The berries are small, globular, and light red.
B. TRIFURCA (syn Mahonia trifurca).—China, 1852. This is a shrub of neat low growth, but it does not appear to be at all plentiful.
B. VULGARIS.—Common Barberry. This is a native species, with oblong leaves, and terminal, drooping racemes of yellow flowers. It is chiefly valued for the great wealth of orange-scarlet fruit. There are two very distinct forms, one bearing silvery and the other black fruit, and named respectively B. vulgaris fructo-albo and B. vulgaris fructo-nigro.
B. WALLICHIANA (syn B. Hookeri).—Nepaul, 1820. This is exceedingly ornamental, whether as regards the foliage, flowers, or fruit. It is of dense, bushy growth, with large, dark green spiny leaves, and an abundance of clusters of clear yellow flowers. The berries are deep violet-purple, and fully half-an-inch long. Being perfectly hardy and of free growth it is well suited for extensive planting.
BERCHEMIA.
BERCHEMIA VOLUBILIS.—Climbing Berchemia. Carolina, 1714. A rarely seen, deciduous climber, bearing rather inconspicuous greenish-yellow flowers, succeeded by attractive, violet-tinted berries. The foliage is neat and pretty, the individual leaves being ovate in shape and slightly undulated or wavy. It is a twining shrub that in this country, even under favourable circumstances, one rarely sees ascending to a greater height than about 12 feet. Sandy peat and a shady site suits it best, and so placed it will soon cover a low-growing tree or bush much in the way that our common Honeysuckle does. It is propagated from layers or cuttings.
BIGNONIA.
BIGNONIA CAPREOLATA—Virginia and other parts of America, 1710. This is not so hardy as to be depended upon throughout the country generally, though in the milder parts of England and Ireland it succeeds well as a wall plant. It is a handsome climbing shrub, with long, heart-shaped leaves, usually terminating in branched tendrils, and large orange flowers produced singly.
BILLARDIERA.
BILLARDIERA LONGIFLORA.—Blue Apple Berry. Van Diemen's Land, 1810. If only for its rich, blue berries, as large as those of a cherry, this otherwise elegant climbing shrub is well worthy of a far greater share of attention than it has yet received, for it must be admitted that it is far from common. The greenish bell-shaped blossoms produced in May are, perhaps, not very attractive, but this is more than compensated for by the highly ornamental fruit, which renders the plant an object of great beauty about mid-September. Leaves small and narrow, on slender, twining stems, that clothe well the lower half of a garden wall in some sunny favoured spot. Cuttings root freely if inserted in sharp sand and placed in slight heat, while seeds germinate quickly.