390 



Minnesota Plant Life. 



The flowers are funnel-shaped with the four calyx and corolla 

 lobes and the four stamens of their family, but the stigma is 

 two-lobed. The flowers are blue or lilac or almost white, and 

 are arranged in flat-topped clusters. The fruit is an almost 

 spherical capsule. The fringed Houstonia has a fringe of hairs 

 along the margins of the leaves, while the long-leaved Houstonia 

 has none. 



Elder-bushes. The honeysuckle family comprises a group 

 of shrubs, vines and herbs, with opposite leaves and tubular, 

 generally five-parted, flowers, the calyx of each of which adheres 



to the surface of the 

 fruit-rudiment, so that 

 the corolla tube and 

 the calyx see m to 

 spring from the top of 

 the undeveloped fruit. 

 Here are included the 

 elders, of which there 

 are two varieties in 

 Minnesota, the one 

 forming a flat-topped 

 cluster of flowers from 

 each of which a purple 

 or black stone-fruit is 

 produce d , and the 

 other, panicle-clusters 

 and stone-fruits of a 

 scarlet or red color 

 when ripe. The berries 

 of both varieties are edible. The leaves are compound like 

 those of the ash, and when bruised have a curious strong smell. 

 Elder flowers have five-lobed corollas with five stamens, each 

 placed in a notch. 



Black haws and high bush cranberries. Related to the elders 

 are the bushes known as black haws, sheepberries, arrowwoods, 

 high bush cranberries, or Viburnums. There are seven or eight 

 varieties in Minnesota. The high bush cranberry is a shrub, 

 eight to twelve feet in height, with opj^osite leaves shaped some- 

 what like those of the maple. The white, honexsucklc-like 



Fig. 



High bush crant)erry. After Britton and 

 Brown. 



