Berberis bodinieri (Gagnepain) Laferrière (1997), not H. Léveillé (1911); B. elegans H. Léveillé (1904), not K. Koch (1869); B. japonica (Thunberg) R. Brown var. trifurca (Lindley & Paxton) Rehder; B. leveilleana (C. K. Schneider) Laferrière; B. trifurca Lindley & Paxton; Mahonia elegans Rehder; M. japonica (Thunberg) Candolle var. trifurca (Lindley & Paxton) Ahrendt; M. leveilleana C. K. Schneider.

Shrubs or small trees, 0.5-4 m tall. Leaves abaxially yellowish green, adaxially dark green, lucid, obovate-oblong, 20-50 × 10-25 cm, with 8-13 pairs of leaflets, lowest pair close to base of petiole, abaxially coarsely reticulate, with raised veins; rachis stout, 2-4 mm in diam.; internodes (2-)5-9 cm, decreasing in length upward; leaflets shortly petiolulate or subsessile, lowest suborbicular, 2.5-3 × 1.5-2.5 cm, those above becoming oblong to broadly lanceolate, 5-16.5 × 2.5-5.5 cm, base oblique, truncate to cuneate, margins of lowest leaflets with 1-3 coarse teeth 5-15 mm, middle leaflets with 3-10 smaller teeth 3-10 mm, upper leaflets with few (sometimes 1 or 2) fine teeth 2-3 mm; terminal leaflet 5-15 × 1.5-5.5 cm, petiolule 1-2 cm. Inflorescence 5-11-fascicled racemes, 10-22(-25) cm; bracts of inflorescence lanceolate, 2-3 cm × 5-7 mm. Pedicel 1.5-5 mm; floral bracts narrowly ovate, 1.5-4 × 0.7-2.5 mm. Sepals yellow; outer sepals ovate, ca. 3 × 2 mm; median sepals elliptic, 4.5-5 × ca. 2.5 mm; inner sepals narrowly elliptic, ca. 5.5 × 3 mm. Petals oblong, subequal to median sepals, 4.5-5 × 2-2.4 mm, base with indistinct glands, apex emarginate. Stamens 2.2-3 mm; anther truncate and 3-denticulate at apex; anther connective not prolonged. Ovary ca. 2 mm; ovules 2; style absent. Berry purplish black, pruinose, globose or sometimes pyriform, 4-6 mm in diam.; style not persistent. Fl. Jun-Sep, fr. Aug-Dec.

● Broad-leaved evergreen forests, mixed broad-leaved evergreen and deciduous forests, Juniperus forests, scrub thickets, forest margins, streamsides; 100-1800 m. Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hunan, Jiangxi, Sichuan, Zhejiang.