''Berberis sheridaniana'' is a shrub in the

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 ...

described as a species in 1913. 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 ...

, found in the provinces of

Hubei Hubei (; ; alternately Hupeh) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China, and is part of the Central China region. The name of the province means "north of the lake", referring to its position north of Dongting Lake. The prov ...

and

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 ...

Taxonomy

''Berberis sheridaniana'' was initially scientifically described and named ''Mahonia sheridaniana'' by

Camillo Karl Schneider Camillo Karl Schneider (7 April 1876 – 5 January 1951) was a German botanist and landscape architect. A farmer's son, he was born at Gröppendorf, in the Kingdom of Saxony, and worked as a gardener at Zeitz, Dresden, Berlin and Greifswald. Retu ...

. He named it named in honor of "Dr. W.R. Sheridan, formerly of the American Methodist Mission Hospital in Chengtu" (

Chengdu Chengdu (, ; Simplified Chinese characters, simplified Chinese: 成都; pinyin: ''Chéngdū''; Sichuanese dialects, Sichuanese pronunciation: , Standard Chinese pronunciation: ), Chinese postal romanization, alternatively Romanization of Chi ...

, 成都市)Schneider, Camillo Karl. 1913. Plantae Wilsonianae an enumeration of the woody plants collected in Western China for the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University during the years 1907, 1908 and 1910 by E.H. Wilson edited by Charles Sprague Sargent 1(3): 384
description in Latin, commentary in English This is most likely an error for Dr. W.J. Sheridan, of the Canadian Methodist Mission Hospital in Chengtu. A paper 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 ''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 ...

'' 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 ''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 ...

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

References

sheridaniana Plants described in 1913 Endemic flora of China {{berberidaceae-stub