Dirty Danglin’ Barberry

Flowering now in the garden is rare, and little-known native barberry, Alloberberis swaseyi. Just for afterhours entertainment, we planted our garden plant near its lust object, Lilium grayi. This native shrub, endemic to the alkaline cracks and rocky soils in the Edwards Plateau of Texas, has thrived for us in the hot, humid, Southeast US. You may see this listed as Berberis swaseyi or Mahonia swaseyi, but we strongly disagree. Years ago, there was a misguided movement to lump the genus Berberis into Mahonia, which we think is taxonomically bonkers. Doing so creates what taxonomists call monophyly, meaning everyone in a “clade” (family tree) is closely related.

In our humble opinion, the better way to resolve the distantly polyphyletic Berberis was to follow Yu and Chung’s 2017 paper, which removed the dryland (xeric) distantly related species (mostly from the Southwestern US) from Berberis, and into two newly created genera, Alloberberis and Moranothamnus.  So, in our humble opinion, and those of the authors of the paper, mahonias and berberis DO NOT belong in the same genus. 

Sadly, the specific epithet is not named after the late Texan Patrick Swayze, but instead honors 19 century physician/gardening editor, Dr. H. A. Swasey, who also died in his mid-50s, when he continued to treat patients after contacting yellow fever, instead of attending to his own health.