Spikey shrub with yellow wood

[msmith]

Original post maybe barberry (sometimes called firethorn)? Fine thorns but very plentiful. Small leaves, sometimes reddish but there are green varieties I think. Going mostly by the color. The other is pokeweed, I hate them. Messy plants. My son likes to whack plants with a stick (future swordsman), I told him he can whack all of these he can find.

Fire bush or Burning Bush for sure. Not Autumn Olive or pokeweed. I have the stinkin' stuff all over my farm. Seems the previous owner liked it as a shrub. Now it's on the fence lines and spreading across the pasture. 2-4D won't kill it and neither will Round Up. I'm gonna try triclopyr next. The prickly stuff has red berries that the birds eat then they crap them back out when they are sitting on a fence and it grows and becomes entangled with the wire. I hate it with a passion.

 

[msmith]

The reason I say this is because when you go to pick them, you grab the branch near the trunk and work your hand up and out towards the end pulling the berries off as you go, dropping them into a bucket, or bowl below. An internet search says they do, but I've never been stuck by a thorn doing them that way, so I've never noticed them to have any. They do make a good tart jelly though, and a decent sour apple wine.

I'm polluted with Autumn Olive. I thought the thorns were new growth that was sharp like a Hawthorn and as it grew the sharpness went away. I don't know, but I do know the little boogers hurt. Never tried the berries for jelly. Might have to do that next year. The bloom in the spring has a sickening sweet aroma to it, but it makes good honey. 2-4D is quiet effective for controlling it.

 

[unclemoustache]

I think Del got it with the Mahonia. Fascinating. Good call!

 

[mr.finn]

The shrub is Japanese Barberry. It is now on the invasive species list.

 

[Zale]

Uncle, it's barberry on the first picture.

 

[unclemoustache]

After googling pics of Barberry, that does look like the one.

Why do there have to be so many stinkin' different kinds of plants?!? I think a couple hundred ought to be enough.

 

[redlawn 78]

I know this post is old..... But..... There is a barberry that looks very much like a mahonia...