Addisonia 61 



(Plate 111) 



SYMPHORICARPOS SYMPHORICARPOS 

 Coral-berry 



Native of east-central United States 



Family Cafrifoi^iacea^ Honbysucklb Family 



Lonicera Symphoricarpos L. Sp. PI. 175, 1753. 

 Symphoricarpos orbiculatus Moench, Meth. 503. 1794. 

 Symphoricarpos vulgaris Michx. Fl. Bor. Am. 1: 106. 1803. 

 Symphoricarpos Symphoricarpos MacM. Bull. Torrey Club 19: 15. 1892. 



A shrub, two to five feet tall, with many erect or ascending 

 purplish-gray or gray branches, spreading or somewhat drooping 

 pubescent branchlets, and yellow and rose flowers followed by 

 coral-red fruit. The opposite leaves, softly pubescent beneath, 

 have petioles less than a quarter of an inch long; the blades are 

 oval, varying to ovate or nearly orbicular, acute or obtuse at apex, 

 usually about one to one and a half inches long and one half to 

 one inch wide, and are pale beneath. The flowers, less than an 

 eighth of an inch long, are in many-flowered densely crowded 

 axillary spikes, which are borne upon the young growth of the 

 season ; the calyx has five triangular ciliate lobes, which in the bud 

 lie as rudimentary structures about the base of the corolla and 

 persist as vestiges on the apex of the fruit. The corolla is bell- 

 shaped, turned obliquely upward, and somewhat inflated in the 

 lower side; its tube is yellow, suffused distally with rose, and the 

 triangular lobes are yellow. There are five pubescent stamens, 

 which are shorter than the corolla, as is also the pubescent style. 

 The fruit is pome-like, of a delicate coral-red, with an obscure 

 bloom, and often an obscure purplish cast. 



Those who have tramped through the open forests of the Missis- 

 sippi valley know well the coral-berry, or buck-brush as it is more 

 commonly called. Through much of the year only a weed-like 

 over-abundant element of the underbrush, in the autumn it becomes 

 transformed. Each branchlet, bending beneath its weight of fruit, 

 changes to a wand of delicate red, and as the plant bears many 

 branches, which rebranch in spray-like fashion, the whole forms a 

 complex and a profusion of color, making it deservedly one of 

 America's favorite decorative shrubs. 



Since the leaves are opposite, the inflorescences are opposite, 

 and because they occur in the axils of most leaves of a season's 

 growth, and the plant is a rapid grower, the pairs of inflorescences 

 are many and gradually approximate toward the apex of the stem. 

 Only when young can the real structure of these be seen; in age 



C--J 



