The Manual of the Botany of the Northern United States: Including the District East of the Mississippi and North of North Carolina and TennesseeGray, Asa
Science
The Manual of the Botany of the Northern United States: Including the District East of the Mississippi and North of North Carolina and Tennessee
Gray, Asa
Plants -- United States
Calyx-lobes minute or obsolete. Corolla open urn-shaped, with a broadly
spreading 5-cleft limb. Stamens 5. Stigmas 3. Fruit a berry-like juicy
drupe, containing 3 small seed-like nutlets.--Shrubby plants, with a
rank smell when bruised, pinnate leaves, serrate-pointed leaflets, and
numerous small and white flowers in compound cymes. (The Latin name,
perhaps from σαμβύκη, an ancient musical instrument.)
1. S. Canadénsis, L. (COMMON ELDER.) Stems scarcely woody (5--10° high);
_leaflets 5--11, oblong_, mostly smooth, the lower often 3-parted;
_cymes flat; fruit black-purple_.--Rich soil, in open places, throughout
our range, and south and west. June, July.--Pith white.
2. S. racemòsa, L. (RED-BERRIED ELDER.) Stems woody (2--12° high), the
bark warty; _leaflets 5--7, ovate-lanceolate, downy underneath; cymes
panicled, convex or pyramidal; fruit bright red_ (rarely white). (S.
pubens, _Michx._)--Rocky woods, N. Scotia to Ga., and westward across
the continent. May; the fruit ripening in June.--Pith brown. Both
species occur with the leaflets divided into 3--5 linear-lanceolate
2--3-cleft or laciniate segments.
3. VIBÚRNUM, L. ARROW-WOOD. LAURESTINUS.
Calyx 5-toothed. Corolla spreading, deeply 5-lobed. Stamens 5. Stigmas
1--3. Fruit a 1-celled, 1-seeded drupe, with soft pulp and a
thin-crustaceous (flattened or tumid) stone.--Shrubs, with simple
leaves, and white flowers in flat compound cymes. Petioles sometimes
bearing little appendages which are evidently stipules. Leaf-buds naked,
or with a pair of scales. (The classical Latin name, of unknown
meaning.)
§ 1. _Cyme radiant, the marginal flowers neutral, with greatly enlarged
flat corollas as in_ Hydrangea; _drupes coral-red turning darker, not
acid; stone sulcate; leaves pinnately veined; winter-buds naked._
1. V. lantanoìdes, Michx. (HOBBLE-BUSH. AMERICAN WAYFARING-TREE.) Leaves
(4--8´ across) round-ovate, abruptly pointed, heart-shaped at the base,
closely serrate, the veins and veinlets beneath with the stalks and
branchlets very rusty-scurfy; cymes sessile, very broad and flat.--Cold
moist woods, N. Brunswick to Ont. and Penn., and in the mountains to
N. C. May. A straggling shrub; the reclining branches often taking
root.
§ 2. _Cyme peduncled, radiant in n. 2; drupe light red, acid, globose;
stone very flat, orbicular, not sulcate; leaves palmately veined;
winter-buds scaly._
2. V. Ópulus, L. (CRANBERRY-TREE.) Nearly smooth, upright (4--10° high);
leaves 3--5-ribbed, strongly 3-lobed, broadly wedge-shaped or truncate
at base, the spreading lobes pointed, mostly toothed on the sides,
entire in the sinuses; petioles bearing 2 glands at the apex.--Low
ground, along streams, from N. Brunswick far westward, and south to
Penn. June, July.--The acid fruit is a substitute for cranberries,
whence the names _High Cranberry-bush_, etc. The well-known SNOW-BALL
TREE, or GUELDER-ROSE, is a cultivated state, with the whole cyme turned
into showy sterile flowers. (Eu.)
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