CAPRIFOLIACES. SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. a7 
half broad, with slender midribs, primary veins connected by conspicuous reticulate veinlets, and broad 
grooved more or less interruptedly winged or often wingless petioles which vary from an inch to an 
inch and a half in length, and on the first pair of leaves are broader, boat-shaped, and covered with thick 
rufous tomentum. In the autumn the leaves turn a deep vinous red or red and orange-color before 
falling. The flowers are slightly fragrant, and appear from the middle of April to the first of June in 
stout-branched scurfy flat cymes from three to five inches in diameter. The bracts and bractlets are 
nearly triangular, a sixteenth of an inch long, green, and caducous. The flower-buds are globose and 
light yellow-green. The flowers, which are borne on slender pedicels bibracteolate at the apex, have a 
slender ovoid calyx-tube with minute triangular acute lobes, a pale cream-colored or nearly white 
corolla a quarter of an inch across when expanded, with ovate lobes acute and slightly erose at the 
apex, exserted stamens with slender filaments and bright yellow anthers, and a thick ovate light green 
style crowned with a broad stigma. The fruit, which ripens in September, is borne on slender drooping 
stalks in red-stemmed few-fruited clusters ; it is oval, thick-skinned, sweet and rather juicy, black or 
dark blue, and covered with a glaucous bloom. 
Viburnum Lentago is distributed in British America from the valley of the Riviére du Loup in 
the province of Quebec to the Saskatchewan,’ and ranges southward through the northern states and 
along the Alleghany Mountains to northern Georgia, and westward in the United States to southern 
Indiana, southwestern Missouri, and eastern Nebraska.” It is a common plant, usually growing on 
rocky hillsides in moist ground, along the borders of the forest, or near the banks of streams and the 
margins of swamps in wet peaty soil, and in northern New England often springing up in fence-rows 
and along the margins of roadsides. 
The wood of Viburnum Lentago is heavy, hard, and close-grained, and contains thin barely 
distinguishable medullary rays. It is dark orange-brown in color, with thin nearly white sapwood. 
The specific gravity of the absolutely dry wood is 0.7303, a cubic foot weighing 45.51 pounds. 
Viburnum Lentago appears to have been discovered by Peter Kalm,’ the Swedish naturalist, who 
traveled in America in the middle of the last century. According to Aiton,* it was cultivated in 
England in 1761 by the nurseryman James Gordon.® 
The Sheepberry is one of the largest of the Viburnums. It is admired for its compact habit, its 
lustrous foliage, which insects rarely disfigure, its beautiful and abundant flowers, its handsome edible 
fruit, and its brilliant autumnal color. It readily adapts itself to cultivation, and is one of the best of 
the small trees of eastern America for the decoration of parks and gardens in all regions of extreme 
winter cold. It is easily raised from seeds which, like those of the other American species, do not 
germinate until the second year after they are planted. 
The specific name, from lentus, first used by Cesalpini,® in allusion to its flexible branches, to 
designate the European Viburnum Lantana, was transferred to this species by Linneus. 
1 Brunet, Cat. Vég. Lig. Can. 33. — Macoun, Cat. Can. Pl. i. 194. 4 Hort. Kew. i. 372. — Loudon, Arb. Brit. ii. 1033, f£. 780. 
2 Bessey, Bull. Exper. Stat. Nebraska, iv. art. iv. 22. 5 See i. 40. 
8 See ii. 86. 8 De Plantis Libri xvi. 76. 
