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Nevin's barberry is a rare, evergreen, spiny shrub native to southern California, now listed as endangered. It is grown as a drought-tolerant ornamental, hedge, and wildlife plant.
Berberis nevinii (syn. Mahonia nevinii, Odostemon nevinii), known by the common name Nevin's barberry, is a species of flowering shrub in the barberry family. endemic to southern California, it is known from very few occurrences in the riparian areas of chaparral in inland canyons and foothills. It is a California state and United States federally listed endangered species, since 1987 and 1998, respectively. There are thought to be about 500 individuals remaining, with half of those being naturally occurring plants. It is also cultivated in gardens and parks as an ornamental and barrier plant.
Berberis nevinii is cultivated as a drought-tolerant ornamental plant by specialty plant nurseries. It is planted as a shrub in native plant and wildlife gardens, natural landscaping of parks in its range, drought tolerant landscaping, and for habitat restoration projects.
It can serve as an impenetrable barrier hedge, due to the spiny-toothed dense foliage. With berries appearing in the summer, earlier/later than other chaparral plants, it is an attractive bird food plant. The plant was introduced into cultivation in California by Theodore Payne in the 1920s.
Populations were historically found in washes of the San Fernando Valley, near the Tujunga wash (near the neighborhood of Garnsey). It was described in the 1910 Bulletin of the New York Botanical Garden as:"A rare species apparently confined to the San Fernando Valley, where it occurs sparingly on the sandy slopes along the eastern edge of the valley. Upper Sonoran. Specimens examined: 'Los Angeles Valley,' probably San Fernando Valley, Nevin, April, 1882; San Fernando, Franceschi, 1893; wash near Garnsey, San Fernando Valley, Grinnell, Oct. 31, 1903"The plant grows between 900 and 2,000 feet of altitude (300 – 610 m) in typical Southern California plant communities like coastal sage scrub, chaparral, cismontane woodland, riparian scrub, sandy and gravelly places, and washes below 2150 feet. The plant is naturally occurring with chamise, manzanitas, California sages, ceanothus species, bush poppy, and bladderpod.
Berberis fremontii · Berberis haematocarpa · Berberis pimana · Currant Of Texas
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Berberis nevinii by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
