# Barberry (Berberis vulgaris) *Common barberry, berbery, pipperidge bush, Holy Thorn; *Berberis dumetorum*; *Berberis vulgaris* L.* **Known today as.** *Berberis vulgaris*, of the family Berberidaceae, a bushy spiny shrub of copses and hedges across most of Europe, North Africa, and temperate Asia, with pendulous racemes of small pale yellow flowers and oblong red berries, “pleasantly acidulous.” Its stamens spring against the pistil when an insect touches them. The stem-bark and root-bark are the drug; the bark is bitter and turns the saliva yellow when chewed. Grieve names its chief constituent as berberine, a yellow bitter alkaloid, with oxyacanthine and berbamine. Kind: Plant > **Caution.** None of the barberry reviews read for this entry reports on safety. LiverTox has no chapter on barberry itself; its chapter on berberine, the plant’s chief alkaloid, finds that berberine has not been linked to clinically apparent liver injury and that its side effects are few and largely mild stomach and bowel symptoms. ## What was it used for? A bitter tonic for the liver and digestion, and an acid fruit. Grieve records the bark as tonic, purgative, and antiseptic, an excellent remedy for dyspepsia and functional derangement of the liver, used in jaundice, biliousness, and diarrhoea, and against intermittent fevers; the berries made a refreshing jelly and an astringent gargle for sore throats, and were pickled, candied, and made into the confitures of Rouen. The roots and bark dyed wool, leather, and linen yellow. ## What does modern science say? No European monograph for it was found for this entry, and the trials used various barberry preparations. Their meta-analyses disagree. One of 2020, of seven trials, found that it lowered insulin but not fasting blood sugar or HbA1c; one of 2021, of five trials, found no significant effect on blood pressure and could not conclude that barberry helps it. A 2025 meta-analysis of eleven trials with 718 participants found modest but significant falls in weight, blood pressure, cholesterol, triglycerides, and fasting blood sugar, though still none in HbA1c. ## Pharmacognosy and toxicology - **berberine**: the chief constituent of the bark, a yellow, bitter alkaloid - **oxyacanthine**: - **berbamine**: **Mechanism.** Not established in the sources read for this entry. **Standing.** There is no European monograph. Meta-analyses of barberry trials (2020, 2021, 2025) disagree on blood sugar and blood pressure. ## What lore surrounds it? Farmers long believed that barberry blighted wheat growing near it, and Folkard counts the belief a superstition. Grieve, quoting Professor Henslow, shows that “in a sense the farmers were right”: a fungus that spots the barberry’s leaves throws off spores that attack the wheat and cause the red rust, so that the bush, though it did not blight the corn itself, was the rust’s first host. In Italy, Folkard and Grieve both record, it was called the Holy Thorn, thought to have furnished the crown of thorns; Folkard explains this by its thorns growing in sets of three. Folkard puts it under Venus, where Culpeper had given it to Mars. ## What did the older authorities say? **Culpeper, *The Complete Herbal* (1653).** “Mars owns the shrub, and presents it to the use of my countrymen to purge their bodies of choler.” The inner bark boiled in white wine cleansed the body of choleric humours and the skin diseases they caused, and the berries, “as good as the bark, and more pleasing,” served for hot agues, burns, and heat of the liver. Hair washed in a lye made of the tree, he adds, turns yellow, “of Mars’ own colour.” ## Sources - Grieve, M. *A Modern Herbal*, “Barberry, Common.” As published on botanical.com. - Culpeper, N. *The Complete Herbal*, “BARBERRY.” Project Gutenberg, 49513. - Folkard, R. (1884). *Plant Lore, Legends, and Lyrics*, “BARBERRY.” Project Gutenberg, 44638. - Safari Z, et al. (2020). The effect of barberry (Berberis vulgaris L.) on glycemic indices: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. *Complementary therapies in medicine*. PMID 32507431. - Atefi M, et al. (2021). The effect of barberry (Berberis vulgaris L.) supplementation on blood pressure: A systematic review and meta-analysis of the randomized controlled trials. *Complementary therapies in medicine*. PMID 33197673. - Zhang X, et al. (2025). The effect of barberry supplementation on components of metabolic syndrome: a grade assessment systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. *Journal of health, population, and nutrition*. PMID 40886028. - LiverTox: Clinical and Research Information on Drug-Induced Liver Injury, “Berberine.” National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, updated 2020. NCBI Bookshelf. - Grieve, M. *A Modern Herbal*, “Barberry, Common.” As published on botanical.com. - LiverTox: Clinical and Research Information on Drug-Induced Liver Injury, “Berberine.” National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, updated 2020. NCBI Bookshelf. - Zhang X, et al. (2025). The effect of barberry supplementation on components of metabolic syndrome: a grade assessment systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. *Journal of health, population, and nutrition*. PMID 40886028. --- *Barberry.* In *Materia Medica*, edited by B. C. P. Statema. Version 1, revised 2026-10-17. The Thinking Press. https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/barberry Historical description, not medical advice.