157. SAMBUCUS GLAUCA ELDER, PALE ELDER, ELDERBERRY. 31 



ORDER CAPRIFOLIACE2E : HONEYSUCKLE FAMILY. 



Leaves opposite and mostly without stipules. Flowers perfect, 4-5-numerous; 

 calyx-tube coherent with the ovary; petals united, forming a tubular or rotate 

 corolla; stamens inserted in the corolla and usually as many as its lobes; pistil 

 with inferior 2-8-celled ovary containing two to many anatropous ovules. Fruit 

 a berry drupe or pod; seed with small embryo and fleshy albumen. 



Order composed mostly of shrubs, a few trees and a few herbs. 



GENUS SAMBUCUS, TOURNEFORT. 



Leaves unequally pinnate, destitute of stipules, leaflets serrate, pointed; leaf- 

 buds scaly; branchlets stiff and containing large pith. Flowers small, regular and 

 perfect (rarely polygamous), articulated with small pedicels, in broad terminal 

 compound cymes; calyx-tube adnate to the ovary, with 3-5 broadly spreading 

 lobes; corolla with 3-5 equal lobes broadly spreading, white (or tinted with yellow 

 or red); stamens 5, inserted on the corolla, alternate with its lobes; stamens with 

 extrorse versatile 2-celled anthers, attached by the back and opening longitudi- 

 nally; pistal with mostly inferior 3-5-celled ovary, short thick style and terminal 

 3 5-fobed stigma, each cell of the ovary containing a single suspended ovule. 

 Fruit a drupe-like juicy subglobose berry, tipped with the remnants of the style 

 and containing 3-5 nutlets, each containing an oblong compressed seed with 

 membranous testa, fleshy albumen and minute embryo. 



Genus composed of trees and shrubs (rarely perennial herbs), having a rank 

 smell when bruised. The name is the classical name of the Elder tree of Europe, 

 and is supposed to be derived from the Greek dajufivxr?, a musical instrument, 

 probably alluding to a use of the pithy shoots. 



157. SAMBUCUS GLAUCA, NUTT. 



ELDER, PALE ELDER, ELDERBERRY. 

 G-er., Holunder; Fr., Bureau; Sp., Sauco. 



SPECIFIC CHARACTERS: Leaves with 5-9 leaflets and stout grooved petioles 

 much enlarged at base, leaflets 26 in. long, with slender petiolules, of thin, firm 

 texture, ovate or lanceolate, acuminate, coarsely serrate with sharp callous-tipped 

 teeth, unequally wedge-shaped or rounded at base, the lower leaflets sometimes 

 3-parted or pinnate, the terminal one sometimes bearing one or two lateral leaf- 

 lets, somewhat pubescent when young, glabrous at maturity, bright green above 

 and paler beneath. Flowers small, about in. across, in flat 5-parted long- 

 branched cymes 4-6 in broad, with linear caducous bracts and bractlets; calyx 

 ovoid with acute scarious lobes; corolla rotate, yellowish white. Fruit subglo- 

 bose, % in. in diameter, tipped with the remnants of the style, blue-black and 

 covered with copious bloom, juicy and of pleasant sweet flavor. 



(The specific name, glauca, is the Latin for bluish gray, and refers to the bloom 

 which covers the fruit.) 



A small tree, sometimes 30 ft. or more in height, with compact 

 rounded top of spreading branches and trunk occasionally 2 ft. in 

 thickness, often twisted, clothed in a dark yellowish-brown bark of 

 yielding texture and deeply fissured into narrow friable ridges. More 

 often than it attains the full stature of such a tree it is a tall shrub 

 with perhaps two or more stems. When in flower or fruit it is decid- 

 edly handsome in appearance. 



HABITAT. From Vancouver Island southward into southern Cali- 

 fornia, and eastward to the Wasatch Mountains in Utah, most abund- 



