Berberidaceae
family of plants
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 the genus Berberis. The species include trees, shrubs and perennial herbaceous plants.
Taxonomy
The APG IV system of 2016 recognises the family and places it in the order Ranunculales in the clade eudicots.
In some older treatments of the family, Berberidaceae only included four genera (Berberis, Epimedium, Mahonia, Vancouveria), with the other genera treated in separate families, Leonticaceae (Bongardia, Caulophyllum, Gymnospermium, Leontice), Nandinaceae (Nandina), and Podophyllaceae (Achlys, Diphylleia, Dysosma, Jeffersonia, Podophyllum, Ranzania, Sinopodophyllum).
Mahonia is very closely related to Berberis, and included in it by many botanists. However, recent DNA-based phylogenetic research has reinstated Mahonia, though with a handful of species transferred into the newly described genera Alloberberis (formerly Mahonia section Horridae) and Moranothamnus (formerly Mahonia claireae). Species of Mahonia and Berberis can be hybridised, with the hybrids being classified in the genus × Mahoberberis.
Diphyllaea is closely related to or perhaps embedded within Podophyllum.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Berberidaceae” as family of plants. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as family of plants. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q155949. The Library of Congress control number is sh85013288. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2016.
Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Berberidaceae” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.