300 BRECK'S BOOK OF FLOWERS. 



SYMPHORIA. 



Snowberry. 



Symphoria is from a combination of Greek words, signifying 

 " a plant which bears its fruit together in clusters." 



Symphoria racemosa. Common Snowberry. This is a 

 delicate, hardy, North American shrub, extensively known and 

 much cultivated on account of its fine white berries, which are 

 quite ornamental, after the leaves have fallen. The flowers 

 are pink, and rather inconspicuous ; the shrub grows about 

 four feet high ; easily propagated by suckers. 



S. glomerata. Cluster-berried Symphoria, or Indian Cur- 

 rant. This has no claims to beauty, as to the flowers, which, 

 like the last, are small and inconspicuous, of a pink color. 

 These are succeeded by dark brownish-purple berries, which 

 are thickly clustered upon the branches, three feet high. It is 

 propagated in the same way. Both these species thrive in the 

 shade and under the droppings of trees. 



SYRINGA. 



Lilac. 



l( Various in array, now white, 

 Now sanguine, and her beauteous head now set 

 With purple spikes pyramidal." 



Syringa, some say from Greek, an Arcadian nymph, or, 

 more properly, here, a pipe. The tubes of the finest Turkish 

 pipes are manufactured from the wood of it ; but the true root 

 of the word is to be found in sirinx, its native name in Barbary. 

 Lilac is a Persian word, signifying a flower. All the species 

 are most beautiful flowering shrubs, readily propagated by 

 suckers, which they throw up in abundance. The common 

 Lilac seems to have been introduced before or during the reign 



