51. Berberis asiatica, Roxb.

The medicinal plant Berberis asiatica is a member of the Berberidaceae (barberry) family. This page includes its habitat, botanical descption, medicinal uses (eg., Ayurveda), chemical constituents and history of use in modern and ancient India.

Index in Flora of British India (Hooker): 1. 110.
Index in Roxb.: 300.

Habitat:—Dry valleys of the Himalaya, from Bhutan to Garhwal, Behar, on Parasnath, Lower hills Dehra,

Vernacular:—Kilmora (Kumaon); Kingora (Dehra Dun and Garhwal); Mate-Kissi; Chitra (Nepal), Kishornoi (Jaunsar),

Medicinal uses:—The medicinal uses of this are the same as those of Berberis aristata.

Botanical description:—An erect thorny shrub, 3-6 ft.

Bark: soft, pale, light brown, yellow in bast layers, corky outside, and deeply cleft vertically.

Wood: yellow, hard; easily recognized by its net-veined leaves. The arrested leaf-bearing shoots often on the top of stout woody tuberculate branchlets of previous years.

Leaves: 1-3 in., rarely acute, rigidly coriaceous, white beneath, obovate, sometimes nearly orbicular, nerves and veins strongly reticulate, laciniose between the veins.

Seedlings: have broadly-ovate leaves, petiole slender, more than twice the length of the blade (Brandis). Usually the leaves, says Kanjilal, are with large distant spinous teeth.

Racemes: corymbose, dense-flowered, shorter than the leaves.

Flowers: peduncled or sessile, 2 in. diam., pale-yellow, at times only 1/12-½ in. diam.

Stigma: capitate on a distinct style.

Berries: large, ½ in. long, ovoid, often nearly globose, glaucous red or black; edible.