Fruits berries, spheric to cylindric-ovoid or ellipsoid, usually juicy, sometimes dry, at maturity. (Whittemore FNA)
Fruit, nearly round and about half an inch in diameter, ...Buckley's report provided the sole basis for the description of J. M. Coulter (1891):
fruit semi-transparent, yellowish white, tinged with red ....
...
I found this rare shrub with ripe fruit about the first of June in 1866
berries nearly globose, about 12 mm. in diameter, "subtransparent," yellowish–white tinged with red. — Discovered along the Perdinales River and not recorded since.E. N. Plank (1893) visited the same area and found several plants:
At the time of my visit during later days of April, the plants were bearing nearly ripe fruit.fruit in bracted racemes, globose or obconical, deeply depressed, sunken at the summit, whitish with a tinge of red in the sun.
And the above authors appear, in turn, to have been the source for Gray's 1895 key which leads to B. swaseyi as:
And in his description (p. 69):Fruit white or nearly so, large, juicy.
... fruit white, translucent with a pale reddish tinge, nearly half an inch in diameter, of pleasant acid taste.In our area, only miles from Buckley's specimen, only roughly a quarter of plants have a few ripe fruits as early as the first week of June, but the overwhelming majority of fruits at this time are immature. And although these do match his description, fertile, mature fruits do not. The earliest ripe fruits I have recorded were May 23, 2004 & June 2, 2005 — Plank's late April seems early even for B. trifoliolata in N. Hays County (earliest: April 29, 2004).
Leaves with only 2-4 pairs of leaflets; stamens dentate; style absent.
Leaves closely reticulate; bracts foliaceous, 3-9 mm. long; fruit yellowish red, epruinose, 10-12 mm. long.
... 604. M. swaseyi (Ahrendt 1961)
10 (9) Bracteoles (at least proximal ones) leathery, spine-tipped; berries white or red, somewhat glaucous, 9-16 mm, usually hollow; c Texas.
... 11 Berberis swaseyi (Whittemore FNA)
2(1). Bracts of inflorescence foliaceous; fruits globose, about 12 mm. in diameter, grading in color from white to brilliant-red, shiny; in west-central Texas.Correll & Johnston seem to be paraphasing B. J. Simpson's notation for specimen collected May 29, 1963 [voucher LL 00354569] — the only specimen that gives fruit color in the U. Texas Herbarium:
... 2. B. swaseyi. (Correll & Johnston 1970)
fruits are bright red but grades from white to red
Berries globose, 10-12 mm., estylose, white or yellow, slightly reddish. (Ahrendt 1961)
Berries white or red and somewhat glaucous, spheric, 9-16 mm, dry or juicy, hollow. (Whittemore FNA)
fruits about 12 mm. in diameter, juicy, edible (Correll & Johnston 1970)
Leaves with only one pair of leaflets; stamens edentate; fruit blue-black, style distinct.
... 602. M. trifoliolata (Ahrendt 1961)
8 (7) Terminal leaflet blade 0.9-2 cm wide; berries red.
... 6 Berberis trifoliolata. (Whittemore FNA)
Berries black, pruinose blue, subglobose, 6-7 x 4.5-5 mm., excluding style 0.25-0.5 mm. long. (Ahrendt 1961)
Berries red, sometimes glaucous, spheric, 6-11 mm, juicy, solid. (Whittemore FNA)
fruits globose, red, often with a bloom, 8-10 mm. in diameter, acidulous, edible (Correll & Johnston 1970)