882 TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



LXVI. CAPRIFOLIACE^:. 



Trees or shrubs, with watery juice, opposite petiolate leaves involute in the bud, with or 

 without stipules, scaly buds, and fibrous roots. Flowers regular, perfect, with articu- 

 lated pedicels, in terminal compound cymes; calyx-tube adnate to the ovary, 5-toothed; 

 corolla epigynous, 5-lobed, the lobes imbricated in the bud; stamens 5, inserted on the tube 

 of the corolla, as many as and alternate with its lobes; filaments slender, free; anthers ob- 

 long, introrse, 2-celled, the cells opening longitudinally; disk (in the arborescent genera of 

 the United States); ovary inferior or partly superior, 3-5 or 1-celled; style short, capitate, 

 3-5-lobed and stigmatic at apex; ovule solitary, suspended from the apex of the cell, resupi- 

 nate; raphe dorsal; micropyle superior. Fruit drupaceous, crowned with the remnants of 

 the style. Seeds with copious fleshy albumen; seed-coat membranaceous, adherent to the 

 albumen; embryo minute, near the hilum; cotyledons ovoid or ovate; radicle terete, erect. 



The Honeysuckle family with ten genera is most abundant in the temperate regions of 

 the northern hemisphere, with a few species extending into the tropics and to beyond the 

 tropics in the southern hemisphere. Many of the species, especially of Lonicera, Sam- 

 bucus, and Viburnum, are cultivated in gardens for the beauty of their flowers and fruits. 



CONSPECTUS OF THE ARBORESCENT GENERA OF THE UNITED STATES. 



Leaves unequally pinnate; fruit with 3-5 nutlets. 1. Sambucus. 



Leaves simple; fruit with 1 stone. 2. Viburnum. 



1. SAMBUCUS L. Elder. 



Trees or shrubs, with stout branches containing thick white or brown pith, and buds 

 with several scales. Leaves petiolate, unequally pinnate, deciduous, with serrate or lacini- 

 ate leaflets, the base of the petiole naked, glandular or furnished with a stipule-like leaf- 

 let; stipels small, leaf-like, usually setaceous, often 0; stipules small, rudimentary, usually 

 except on vigorous shoots. Flowers small, in broad terminal corymbose cymes, their bracts 

 and bractlets lanceolate, acute, scarious, caducous, sometimes ebracteolate; calyx-tube 

 ovoid, the limb 3-5-lobed or toothed; corolla rotate or slightly campanulate, equally 3-5- 

 parted; filaments filiform or subulate; ovary inferior or partly superior, 3-5- celled; style 

 abbreviated, thick and conic, 3-5-lobed, stigmatic at apex. Fruit subglobose, with juicy 

 flesh, and 3-5 oblong cartilaginous punctate-rugulose or smooth 1-seeded nutlets full and 

 rounded on the back and rounded at the ends. ' Seeds filling the cavity of the nutlets, pale 

 brown; cotyledons ovoid. 



Sambucus with about twenty species is widely and generally distributed through the 

 temperate parts of North America, Europe, and Asia, and inhabits high mountain ranges 

 within the tropics, and in Australia, Tasmania, and New Zealand. Of the nine or ten 

 North American species three are arborescent. Sambucus possesses cathartic and emetic 

 properties in the bark; the flowers are excitant and sudorific, and the juice of the fruit is al- 

 terative and laxative. The dried flowers of the European Sambucus nigra L., are used in 

 the preparation of an aromatic distilled water and in flavoring lard, and the hard and com- 

 pact wood is made into combs and mathematical instruments. The large pithy shoots of 

 Sambucus furnish children with pop-guns, pipes, and whistles; and the fruit of some of the 

 species is cooked and eaten. 



Sambucus, the name of the Elder-tree, is believed to have been derived from tra/z/Swo?, a 

 musical instrument, probably in allusion to the use of the pithy stems. 



CONSPECTUS OF THE ARBORESCENT SPECIES OF THE UNITED STATES. 



Cymes flat-topped; pith usually white; fruit black; nutlets rugose. 



Fruit lustrous. 1. S. Simpsonii (C). 



Fruit appearing blue from a thick covering of bloom. 2. S. coerulea (B, F, G, H). 

 Cymes ovoid; pith pale brown; fruit red; nutlets smooth. 3. S. callicarpa (B, G). 



