366 WOODY PLANTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 



rich blue berries hanging down among the curled leaves, which 

 are beginning to assume the beautiful hues of autumn. A tree 

 of this kind makes a fine appearance at the angle of a walk, 

 or in the corner of a garden, as its delicacy invites a near ap- 

 proach and rewards examination. With this delicacy of ap- 

 pearance, it is a hardy plant, and may, sometimes, be seen on 

 a bleak hill-side, where it has encountered the northwest, 

 stormy winds, for a score of years. 



Sp. 3. The Arrow Wood. V. dentatum. L. 



An erect shrub or small tree, four to fifteen feet high, growing 

 in every part of the State, and from Canada to Louisiana, in 

 swamps and wet grounds, remarkable for the yellowish green 

 color and the large teeth of the leaves. The old stems are near- 

 ly black, and, from' the damp places in which the plant grows, 

 are often covered with thin, whitish lichens. The recent shoots 

 are yellowish green, smooth and obscurely four -angled, with a 

 few brownish dots. The stem in young plants is grayish pur- 

 ple above, darker below. The branches are opposite, at rather 

 sharp angles. The leaves are opposite, often reflexed, on red- 

 dish green, channelled footstalks, which are half an inch or an 

 inch in length. They are broad-ovate, or inversely egg-shaped, 

 on the flowering branches nearly orbicular, on the growing 

 shoots much longer, rounded or heart-shaped at base, pointed 

 or acuminate at the extremity, conspicuously toothed, the teeth 

 ending in a rather blunt point, yellowish green and shining 

 above, lighter beneath, with strongly prominent veins, downy 

 at the axils. In October, they become of a dark crimson. 



The flowers are white, in terminal cymes, nearly flat above, 

 on grooved, obscurely four-angled footstalks, enlarging upwards, 

 and two or three inches long; from three to seven, angled, 

 light yellowish-green branches, radiating from a common point 

 on the central stalk, and afterwards branching somewhat irreg- 

 ularly. The ultimate flower stalk very short. Calyx ending 

 in minute, white teeth. Corolla in one piece of five, expanding, 

 rounded petals, with erect or diverging stamens at the angles 

 within. Styles short, white. The fruit is of a dark lead color, 

 when ripe, roundish-oval, crowned by the five brown, crushed 



