CAPRIFOLIACEE. SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 89 
to the Saskatchewan and the mountains of Colorado, Utah, and Arizona, and southward to Florida and 
Texas, it differs in its arborescent habit and in the pubescent covering of the young shoots and leaves, 
although some of its glabrate forms are barely distinguishable from the northern plant. 
The wood of Sambucus Canadensis, var. Mexicana, is light, soft, and coarse-grained ; it contains 
numerous thin conspicuous medullary rays, and is light brown with thin lighter colored sapwood 
composed of two or three layers of annual growth. The specific gravity of the absolutely dry wood 
is 0.4614, a cubic foot weighing 28.75 pounds. 
The Mexican Elder was first found in the United States by Mr. Charles Wright? in the valley of 
the lower Rio Grande in June, 1852. Its dense leafy head and large handsome flower-clusters make 
it a desirable ornamental tree, and in northern Mexico” and lower California? it is often found in the 
neighborhood of houses, where it is planted for shade and for the fruit, which is eaten by Mexicans and 
Indians. 
Arb. Brit. ii. 1030, £. 776.— Dietrich, Syn. ii. 1009.— Torrey & Sambucus repens, Rafinesque, Alsograph. Am. 47 (1838). 
Gray, Fl. N. Am. ii. 13.— Emerson, Trees Mass. 362. — Chapman, Sambucus bipinnata, Rafinesque, Alsograph. Am. 47 (1838). 
Fl. 171.— Koch, Dendr. ii. 71.— Gray, Syn. Fl. N. Am. i. pt. il. Sambucus glauca, Gray, Smithsonian Contrib. v. 66 (Pl. Wright. 
9. — Watson & Coulter, Gray’s Man. ed. 6, 217. ii.) (1853) (not Nuttall). 
Sambucus nigra, Marshall, Arbust. Am. 141 (1785) (not Lin- 1 See i. 94. 
nus). 2 C. G. Pringle, Garden and Forest, i. 106. 
Sambucus humilis, Rafinesque, Ann. Nat. 13 (1820) ; Alsograph. 8 Brandegee, Proc. Cal. Acad. ser. 2, ili. 224. 
Am. 48. 
