White and Greenish 



No garden is complete — was garden ever complete ? — without 

 the beautiful snowball bush, a sterile variety of this shrub, with 

 whose abundant balls of white flowers every one is familiar. 

 When various members of the viburnum and the hydrangea 

 tribes are cultivated, the corollas of both the small interior flowers 

 and those in the showy exterior circle become largely developed, 

 while the reproductive organs of the former gradually become 

 abortive. The snowball bush rather overdoes its advertising busi- 

 ness ; for however attractive its round white masses of sterile 

 bloom, the effect is of no advantage to itself. 



In light, dry, rocky woods, from North Carolina and Minne- 

 sota, far northward, grows the common Maple-leaved Arrow- 

 wood or Dockmackie {y. acerifolium), which one might easily 

 mistake for a maple sapling when it is not in flower or fruit. All 

 the blossoms in its slender peduncled, flat-topped, white clusters 

 are perfect ; none are sterile for advertising purposes merely, as 

 in the cases of so many of its relatives. The five stamens pro- 

 trude from each five-lobed little flower for plain reasons. The 

 opposite leaves are broadly ovate, three-ribbed, three-lobed, 

 coarsely toothed, acute at the tip, and, except for their soft hairi- 

 ness underneath, are too like maple leaves to be mistaken. In 

 autumn, when they take on rich tints, and the clusters of " ber- 

 ries" become first crimson, then nearly black, the shrub is a 

 delight to see. 



To become familiar with one of the Viburnum bushes is to 

 recognize any member of the tribe when in blossom or fruit, for all 

 spread more or less flattened, compound cymes of white flowers 

 in late spring or early summer, followed by red or very dark "ber- 

 ries " (drupes) ; but it is on the leaves that we depend to name a 

 species. The opposite, slender petioled, pale leaves of the Arrow- 

 wood, or Mealy-tree (K. dentaium), have no lobes ; but are ovate, 

 coarsely toothed, pointed at the tip, prominently pinnately veined. 

 All the flowers in a cyme are perfect ; and the drupes, which are 

 at first blue, become nearly black when fully ripe. In moist, or 

 even wet, ground, from the Georgia mountains, western New 

 York, and Minnesota far northward, this smooth, slender, gray 

 shrub is found. Its wood once furnished the Indians with arrows. 



A much lower growing, but similar, bush, the Downy-leaved 

 Arrow- wood (K. pubescens), formerly counted a mere variety of 

 the preceding, m«y be known by the velvety down on the under 

 side of its leaves. It grows in rocky, wooded places, often on 

 some high bank above a stream. Beetles and the less specialized 

 bees visit the flat-topped flower clusters abundantly in May. 

 Short-tongued visitors quickly lick up the abundant nectar 

 secreted at the base of each little style* cross-fertilizing their enter- 



358 



