Barberries and Burning Bushes

     The attractive Japanese barberry bushes and burning bushes have been planted on many lawns in eastern North America for their beauties, especially in their autumn leaves during October and November.  But these shrubs are aliens from eastern Asia, invasive and have many other characteristics in common, which makes them interesting.
     Both these species of beautiful shrubs are most noticeable in November when their striking, red leaves stand out.  And I think they are particularly attractive in the shrub layers of certain woods,  woodland edges, hedgerows between fields and roadsides where they sprouted on their own from seeds.  The red leaves of those wild bushes brighten those natural and human-made habitats. 
     Both kinds of shrubs traveled from lawns to wild habitats by starlings, American robins, eastern bluebirds, cedar waxwings and other kinds of birds consuming their strikingly red berries in autumn and into winter.  A northern mockingbird, a few robins and a little groups of bluebirds have eaten red berries off barberries on our lawn in winter over the years.  All those bird species easily see the red berries, digest their pulp, but pass their seeds in droppings as they fly across the countryside and into the woods.  Many of those seeds that are not ingested by mice and squirrels sprout into new shrubs.  Barberries and burning bushes have become firmly established in many woodlands in recent years. 
     In the distant past, apparently, those barberries and burning bushes that produced red berries had a better chance of reproducing themselves because birds can see colors to pick out and eat ripe fruit of various kinds.  And birds don't have teeth to chew the seeds, which would kill plant embryos inside them.  And because those embryos develop in tough shells that don't get digested by the birds' stomachs, they survive the birds' ingesting the berries.  Therefore, those birds pass viable seeds, ensuring themselves of future food supplies.
     Small birds that raise young in shrubbery can also rear offspring in barberry bushes and burning bushes.  Both species have multitudes of stems, twigs and leaves that shelter young birds in their nurseries.  Barberries also have thin, sharp thorns that help keep predators at bay.  A pair each of northern cardinals and gray catbirds have nested in our barberries over the years, but not in the same ones at the same time.  I have not seen their cradles of twigs and rootlets when young were in them, but I see parents of both species repeatedly taking insects into that shrubbery in summer and emerging with white droppings from the babies in their beaks to drop away from the nests.  And I see the abandoned nests in winter when the leaves are off those bushes.
     Barberries and burning bushes are beautiful shrubs, particularly in October and November when their foliage turns red.  But they are invasive in woodlands and other habitats because of birds eating their berries.  However, I think both these adaptable species are here to stay in the wild.  And we have to redefine what plants compose a woodland shrub layer.  Though many people are not fond of these bushes in the woods, they do brighten that habitat and benefit a variety of wildlife as well.