CAPRIFOLIACE^, 343 



winter-buds. The red-berried elder of the northern woods, from Oregon 

 to Alaska, is not S. racemosa, for it has, like our species, very ample and 

 almost flat-topped cymes; but neither am I confident of its identity 

 with S. callicarpa. Our tree has small winter-buds, and is hardly in 

 flower before April, putting forth its leaves in March. 



2. S. melauocarpa, Gray, Proc. Am. Acad. xix. 76 (1883). Shrubby, 

 only 6—8 ft. high: leaves never bipinnate; stipules 0; leaflets 5—7, 

 oblong-lanceolate, abruptly acuminate: cyme rather ample, broad but 

 convex: fr. black, without })loom. — Common in the northern Rocky 

 Mountains, reaching the Sierra Nevada, according to Gray. The species 

 is nearest to S. pnhens, having rather conspicuous winter-buds, and con- 

 vex or even somewhat pyramidal inflorescence. 



3. S. velutina, Dur. & Hilg. Pac. R. Rep. v. 8 (1855): S. Mexicana, 

 Presl.; DC. Prodr. iv. 322 ? (1830). Shrub 5—6 ft. high, velvety-tomen- 

 tose, the upper face of the leaves glabrous: leaflets 5 — 11, obliquely 

 ovate-lanceolate, acute, sharply serrulate, subcoriaceous : corymb small, 

 flattish : f r. dark purple, of an agreeable flavor. — The type of this is from 

 the plains of Kern Co. ; and to the species may probably be referred an 

 almost herbaceous elder common in the Sacramento Valley wheat fields. 

 The shoots of this are simple, 5 or 6 ft. high, and bear an ample terminal 

 cyme. But the leaves in this scarcely shrubby plant are commonly 

 altogether bipinnate. Its fruit is unknown, for the plants, springing up 

 in the fields after the spring plowing and as if from rootstocks, are cut 

 down by the reapers while in flower. It seems unlikely that S. Mexicana 

 can be this species. 



4. S. glauca, Nutt; T. & G. Fl. ii. 13 (1841). Arborescent, often 30 

 ft. high at southerly stations, and the solitary trunk not rarely more than 

 a foot thick, covered with a dark close very distinctly and rather finely 

 fissured bark: twigs long and slender; leaves exstipulate, coriaceous, 

 glabrous; leaflets 3 — 5 pairs, lanceolate, acuminate, sharply serrulate, 

 seldom or never divided: cymes large, flat: fl. white: fr. blue with a 

 dense bloom but black beneath it. — In rather dry and sparsely wooded 

 ravines and open grounds throughout the middle and southern parts of 

 the State; flowering and fruiting at intervals throughout the long season 

 from March to December. Fruit acidulous, and when cooked not unpala- 

 table. In San Diego Co. the author once measured a healthy tree of 

 this species with trunk three feet thick. 



2. VIBURNUM, Pliny. Shrubs or small trees, with tough and 

 flexible (not pithy) branches, simple leaves, and terminal flattened cymes 

 of white flowers. Corolla rotate or open-campanulate. Ovary 1-celled, 

 1-ovuled, becoming a drupe with a single more or less flattened stone. 

 Embryo minute. 



