XIX. 2. THE SWEET VIBURNUM. 365 



a profusion of delicate, showy flowers. The branches and re- 

 cent shoots are of a grayish brown, dotted, and often with a 

 scaly or dusty surface. The smaller stems and larger branches 

 are of a dark purple, almost black. The branches are opposite, 

 at large angles. The leaves are broad oval, or lance-ovate, 

 acute, rounded or sometimes heart-shaped at base, acuminate, 

 sharply serrate, smooth above, paler or ferruginous beneath ; 

 the footstalk is rather long, channelled above, conspicuously 

 margined with an irregular, waved or glandular border. The 

 leaf-stalk, fruit-stalk, under surface of the leaf and the mid -rib 

 above are set with ferruginous, glandular dots or scales. The 

 leaves are often half bent backwards. 



The flowers are in terminal cymes, sessile in the axil of a 

 pair of leaves or branches. Five or more stalks spring nearly 

 from one centre, and diverging an inch or more, divide repeat- 

 edly into three or more shorter branches, at the base of which 

 is often visible a minute linear bract. The pedicels are very 

 short, terminating in a round ovary, surmounted by a calyx of 

 five minute segments, above which rests a salver-shaped corolla 

 of one petal, expanding with five oval, rounded, reflexed seg- 

 ments of pure white. From the angles of these segments rise 

 the five stamens, with slender, tapering filaments, longer than 

 the corolla, and bearing on their point a short, yellow anther. 



The great number of the anthers, in a head of flowers, gives 

 a yellow tinge to the whole, and a very agreeable fragrance is 

 diffused; amidst the flowers are often seen the leaves rising. 

 The fruit is large, often half an inch or more long, on stout 

 stems, oblong, flattened, and, when ripe in October, turns from 

 a rich scarlet to a shining blue black, covered with a glaucous 

 bloom and crowned with the permanent calyx-segments, sur- 

 rounding the stigma. It is not unpleasant to the taste. The 

 nut is oblong-oval, flattened, with an obtuse point, and grooved 

 on both sides. The sweet viburnum is found from Canada to 

 the mountains of Carolina and Georgia. 



There is a softness and richness about the flowers and foliage 

 of the sweet viburnum, which distinguish it above all others of 

 the same genus. 



Tt is hardly less beautiful in fruit, from the profusion of the 



