GUELDER ROSE 31 



a distance as to lose all detail the elder and the guelder 

 rose will appear of about the same height, and are each 

 seen to be bearing rather large clusters of white flowers, 

 but there all resemblance ceases. The foliage of the 

 guelder rose is not in the least like that of the elder, 

 the flowers of the elder bear no similarity to those of 

 the guelder rose, voila tout. The leaves of the guelder 

 rose turn a very rich crimson-purple in the Autumn, and 

 remain for some considerable time on the tree. 



The snowball tree, often met with in gardens and 

 shrubberies, with its great globular masses of blossom, is 

 a cultivated variety of our plant. In this, instead of merely 

 an outer ring of large and barren flowers, all are enlarged 

 and barren, one result, of course, being that these garden 

 guelder roses, beautiful as they are, have not the added 

 charm of clustering fruit for our delectation.^ 



The berries of the wild guelder rose look fairly tempting, 

 but if tasted they are found to be bitter and no longer 

 inviting. Our older writers on plants were so accustomed 

 to ascribe the most wonderful healing properties to almost 

 everything they could lay hands on, that it is really a 

 matter for wonder to find one of these venerable authorities 

 declaring that " concerning the faculties of these, and the 

 berries, there is nothing found in any writer, neither can 

 we set downe anything hereof of our owne knowledge." 



In the botanical lists our tree is the Viburnum Opulus. 

 Virgil, writing many a century ago, often incidentally 



' There come forth goodly floures of a white colour, and do grow thicke 

 and closely compact together in quantitie and bulke of a man's hand, or rather 

 bigger, of great beauty, and sauoring like the floures of the Haw-thorne ; but 

 in my gardens there growth not any fruit vpon this tree, nor in any other 

 place, for ought that I can vnderstand. — Gerard, 1633, 



