Beale’s barberry, named after a British gardener living in Shanghai, comes from the great Chinese plain, where subtropical climate prevails. Nevertheless, it grows well in parks and gardens in colder regions and is a popular ornamental shrub.

Ripe fruits of Beale’s barberry are edible raw or cooked and a jam can be prepared. Dried berries give muesli a fruity note. It is occasionally complained that the Beale’s barberry contains many seeds, but I found mainly seedless, hollow fruits, so that this seed appeared to me as a rarity.

The yellow flowers attract many bumblebees and bees and have an intense fragrance.

Beale’s barberry is evergreen. The orange leaf shown is not an autumn leaf, but is infested with a rust fungus.

• Edible Fruits
• Type of fruit Berry
• Culinary Group Wild fruits
• Taste bitter sour
• Trivial Names Beals Mahonie, Beales Mahonie, Beale's barberry
• Size (fruit bunch) 16 cm
• Taxonomy Berberidaceae Mahonia bealei
• Origin East-Asia (Map)
• Locality (Flowers ans fruits) Palmengarten Franfurt (FRP) 2018
• Locality (Leaf) Palmengarten Franfurt (FRP) 2017