''Berberis gracilipes'' is a

shrub A shrub (often also called a bush) is a small-to-medium-sized perennial woody plant. Unlike herbaceous plants, shrubs have persistent woody stems above the ground. Shrubs can be either deciduous or evergreen. They are distinguished from trees ...

in the

family Family (from la, familia) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its ...

Berberidaceae The Berberidaceae are a family of 18 genera of flowering plants commonly called the barberry family. This family is in the order Ranunculales. The family contains about 700 known species, of which the majority are in ''Berberis''. The species i ...

, first described in 1887. It is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsew ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

, native to the

Sichuan Sichuan (; zh, c=, labels=no, ; zh, p=Sìchuān; alternatively romanized as Szechuan or Szechwan; formerly also referred to as "West China" or "Western China" by Protestant missions) is a province in Southwest China occupying most of the ...

and

Yunnan Yunnan , () is a landlocked Provinces of China, province in Southwest China, the southwest of the People's Republic of China. The province spans approximately and has a population of 48.3 million (as of 2018). The capital of the province is ...

Provinces.Flora of China Vol. 19 Page 774 细柄十大功劳 xi bing shi da gong lao ''Mahonia gracilipes'' (Oliver) Fedde
/ref>

Taxonomy

''Berberis gracilipes'' was initially scientifically described and named by Daniel Oliver. As a part of the classification of some of genus ''

Berberis ''Berberis'' (), commonly known as barberry, is a large genus of deciduous and evergreen shrubs from tall, found throughout Temperateness, temperate and subtropical regions of the world (apart from Australia). Species diversity is greatest in S ...

'' as part of a separate genus ''

Mahonia ''Mahonia'' is a genus of approximately 70 species of evergreen shrubs and, rarely, small trees in the family Berberidaceae, native to eastern Asia, the Himalaya, North and Central America. They are closely related to the genus ''Berberis'' and ...

Friedrich Karl Georg Fedde Friedrich Karl Georg Fedde (30 June 1873, Breslau (now Wrocław) – 14 March 1942, Berlin-Dahlem) was a German botanist. Biography Fedde studied natural sciences, commencing in 1892 and graduating in 1896 in Breslau. He was a teacher in schools ...

renamed it as ''Mahonia gracilipes'' in 1901. A paper was published by

Joseph Edward Laferrière Joseph Edward Laferrière (born 1955) is an American botanist with a particular interest in ethnobotany. He obtained his Ph.D. from the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Arizona in 1991 with a dissertation titled ...

in 1997 summarized the arguments for ''Mahonia'' being more properly classified as a

synonym A synonym is a word, morpheme, or phrase that means exactly or nearly the same as another word, morpheme, or phrase in a given language. For example, in the English language, the words ''begin'', ''start'', ''commence'', and ''initiate'' are all ...

of ''Berberis''. As of 2023 this is the most common classification by botanists.

References

gracilipes Endemic flora of China Plants described in 1887 {{berberidaceae-stub