420 



cymes of rather ill-scented flowers, and later with the glowing scarlet 

 of its half-ripe, polished, coral-like berries, that at length assume a 

 deep purple black, with a somewhat glaucous bloom, finely contrast- 

 ing with the softly-blended shades of red, brown and yellow displayed 

 in the broad, plaited or wrinkled leaves previous to their decay. A 

 variety with the leaves dark green, shining and glabrous above, is not 

 unfrequent here, and the shrub is very commonly cultivated in the 

 Kyde gardens. The fruit is sweetish, and rather pleasantly tasted, 

 fully as much so as that of V. Lentago or V. prunifolium, which I 

 have seen sold in the markets at Philadelphia and Montreal, and it is 

 eagerly sought after by our feathered songsters in autumn, that eat 

 out the soft pulp, leaving the skins of the berries attached to the fruit- 

 stalks. This shrub is called whip-crop in the Isle of Wight (some- 

 times applied to Pyrus Aria), from the occasional use made of its long, 

 tough shoots by carters and ploughmen for whip handles, whilst in 

 southern Russia, besides serving a precisely similar purpose, the 

 bored stems were exported even to Germany, for the tubes of tobacco 

 pipes (Pallas El. Ross. i. part 2, p. 31). The North American way- 

 faring tree, or hobble-bush {V. lantanoides) , is a perfectly distinct 

 species, though strangely enough thought by the author of the ' Arbo- 

 retum Britannicum ' a variety of the European. 



Viburnum Opulus. In low and moist (rarely in dry upland) 

 copses, thickets and hedges, and by stream sides ; extremely frequent 

 over the whole county and island. Very common in damp woods 

 around Ryde, as in Quarr Copse, at Apley, &c. Plentiful in copses 

 about E. Cowes, Newport, Yarmouth and Calbourne. Very common 

 in woods at Selborne, at Sheat and elsewhere about Petersfield, 

 Bishopstoke, Fareham, Boldre, &c. Var. @. Lobes of the leaves very 

 long and acuminate.* In a copse near Hardhill Farm, near Cowes, 

 Isle of Wight. Var. y. Radiant flowers of the cyme herbaceous, 

 greenish, or variegated green and white. In Whitefield Wood, be- 

 twixt Ryde and Brading, 1842, a single tree. In Elm Copse, near 

 Calbourne, several bushes, June, 1845. A no less conspicuous orna- 

 ment of our damp, than the foregoing of our dry, woods and hedges, 

 decorating them with its broad flat cymes, bordered with a coronet of 



* Do not the lobed leaves in this species and a few more of the genus Viburnum 

 point at an occult, pinnated arrangement, the gland-like appendages near the summit 

 of the petioles being, in fact, rudimentary leaflets ? The near relation of Viburnum 

 to Sambucus favours this supposition, which, if correct, the lobes of the leaves exhibit 

 the uppermost pair of leaflets with the terminal one united. 



