FLOWERING SHRUBS 



bony seeds and boiled with sugar; and though somewhat 

 astringent, it forms an excellent sauce for roasted mutton 

 or venison, and, mixed with water, is useful as a fever drink. 



As a garden shrub this Viburnum is considered very orna- 

 mental, from its abundance of flowers and beautiful fruit. 

 It is no other than the fertile plant of the American Guelder- 

 rose. The cultivated Snowball Tree of our gardens is the 

 same species, in which the fertile flowers have been sup- 

 pressed and the showy sterile ones, which only appear in 

 small numbers round the edge of the cyme in the wild plant, 

 greatly increased in number by the skill of the horticulturist. 

 The V. Opulus is also indigenous to England. I remember 

 finding the same flowering bush on the banks of a lonely 

 pond in Eeydon Wood, Suffolk, and recognized the High- 

 bush Cranberry on the shores of the Otonabee Eiver from its 

 likeness to the shrub that had attracted my notice in my 

 woodland rambles in England. 



The foliage of the High-bush Cranberry takes a bronzed- 

 purple hue, turning to a deep crimson in the Autumn. The 

 leaves are large, three-lobed and pointed. The flowers are 

 borne on wide-spreading peduncled cymes, having the central 

 flowers very small but fertile; the marginal ones are im- 

 perfect, being destitute of both stamens and pistils, but the 

 corollas are disproportionately large and give the beauty to 

 the flower clusters of this fine shrub. 



The name Cranberry has been improperly applied to 

 Viburnum Opulus, as it has no affinity with the low creep- 

 ing Marsh Cranberry, that most elegant and charming little 

 plant, with its delicate graceful flowers, myrtle-like leaves, 

 and pear-shaped ruby-colored fruit. Those persons who use 

 the fruit as a preserve know little of the exquisite beauty 

 of the plant itself. To be admired it should be seen in its 

 native haunts, growing among the soft peat-mosses of our 



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