Wintergreen Barberry

Berberis julianae

Also known as Chinese Barberry, Juliana Barberry

At a glance

Family

Berberidaceae (the barberry family)

Type

Evergreen, spine-covered shrub

Parts used

Root bark and stem bark (occasionally the berries)

Size

3 to 6 feet tall and wide, dense and stiffly upright

Bloom

Small clustered yellow flowers in mid to late spring, followed by blue-black berries in autumn

Habitat

Native to rocky hillsides, thickets, and forest margins in central China (Hubei province); widely planted as an ornamental hedge in temperate gardens worldwide

Acquisition

Grow

Traditional remedies in HerbSense

Key benefits

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Traditional bitter digestive tonic

Historic liver support herb

Dense, impenetrable thorny hedging

Year-round evergreen structure

Traditional uses

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Wintergreen barberry is, first and foremost, a garden workhorse: gardeners across the world have prized its dense, glossy, spine-edged foliage for hedging that nothing dares push through, and its cheerful yellow spring flowers give way to blue-black berries that carry it into autumn. Like its many barberry cousins, its inner bark and roots carry the bright yellow alkaloid berberine, and across cultures the genus Berberis has long been steeped as a bitter tonic to rouse a tired appetite and ease a heavy stomach. Wintergreen barberry itself is used less often in this way than its better documented relatives, European barberry and tree turmeric, so most of what is known about it traditionally speaks to its garden virtues rather than its medicine chest ones.

How to grow & use it

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✦ Growing guide
✦Harvest & storage

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Pairs well with

✦Dandelion root
✦Ginger root
✦Licorice root

Substitutes

✦Oregon grape root (Mahonia aquifolium)
✦Goldenseal (Hydrastis canadensis)

Choose it when

“When the garden calls for a thorny, gold-veined sentinel that stands its ground through every season, needle-sharp and unbothered by winter.”

Did you know?

Slice into a barberry stem and the wood beneath the bark glows a startling egg-yolk yellow. That color comes from berberine, an alkaloid so closely tied to this plant family that it takes its very name from the genus Berberis, and the same bright wood was once used by dyers to color wool and leather.

Safety

Berberine in the bark should not be used during pregnancy or breastfeeding and must never be given to infants, since it has been linked to a serious jaundice complication called kernicterus. It can also interact with blood thinners, blood sugar medication, and liver-processed drugs, and the plant's spines can cause painful puncture wounds.