Viburnum.] caprifoliace/e. 233 



different cymes, some even on the same bush remaining wholly unaltered. In 

 this state the flowers bear a considerable resemblance to those of some N. Ameri- 

 can species of Hydrangea. 



When cultivated, all the central flowers of the cyme, like those of the circum- 

 ference, lose the organs of fructification, each becoming a flat expansion of the 

 6-lobed corolla around a minute point, whilst the entire cyme assumes a globular 

 form*. In this stale it is familiar to most persons as the Siiowball-tree of our 

 gardens and shrubberies, to which it is a great but transitory ornament. The 

 tendency to run into this double or rather sterile condition is so great that it is 

 scarcely possible to preserve it single under cultivation, even when raised from 

 cuttings brought from the woods, such cuttings themselves producing flowers with 

 a partially altered structure. The single wilrl shrub is scarcely inferior in beauty 

 to the garden variety, though less showy ; the broad flat cymes, bordered with a 

 coronet of the purest white, decorate our moist woods in summer, and enliven them 

 in autumn with the bright scarlet of the ripe berries and the vivid purple of the 

 fading leaves. The flowers are greenish on first opening, and the abortive mar- 

 ginal ones expand before the rest. The fruit of two species closely resembling 

 the present, V. edule and V. Oxycoccos,\ is agreeably acid, and used as a substitute 

 for cranberries in N. America. That of the European liind, offensive and nau- 

 seous as it is to our more civilized and refined taste, yields an acceptable treat to 

 the natives of a ruder soil. The berries, Pallas tells us, are eaten in Russia either 

 boiled into a paste ? (in pastam coctte) with flour and honey, or baked with the 

 flour of fermented barley into small cakes.| Gmeliii§ relates a strange story, from 

 Sleller, of the properly these berries are said to possess of depriving corn-brandy 

 of both taste and smell, and reducing it apparently to so much water, yet retain- 

 ing its intoxicating power, which is rather increased ihan diminished by the addi- 

 tion, but the history is too long for insertion in this place. 



The American Guelder Rose, as I have gathered it in Canada, differs in no 

 respect from the European shrub, as far as I can discover ; and the ripe fruit has 

 precisely the same intense acidity and bitterness. In that country and in the 

 United Slates many wild berries and fruits are sold in the public markets which 

 we should not deem worth the trouble of gathering. Thus I have seen Acorns, Beech- 

 mast, the berries of various species of Thorn, Viburnum., &c., exposed on the stalls, 

 with other and more palatable wild fruit, as Hickory and Hazel-nuts, Walnuts, 

 Persimnons, Chestnuts, and many other kinds. A stroll amongst the stalls on a 

 market-day, at Philadelphia in particular, is at the proper season not the least 

 interesting and profitable of the rambles of a travelling naturalist, where he may 

 make large additions to his carpological collection, and gratify his appetite wiih 

 many carpological novelties not to be despised in the pride of his philosophy. 



The N. American V. acerifolium, which the author of the ' Arboretum Britan- 

 nicum ' thinks may be a variety of our Guelder Rose, is manifestly distinct, and 

 finds its analogue in the V. onentale of Asia, from which it is possibly not really 

 different, but this last I have no knowledge of except from plates and descrip- 

 tions. 



2. V. Lantana,Ti. Wayfaring-tree. Pliant Mealy -tree. Vect. 

 Whip-crop. Leaves roundish ovate or ovato-elliptical plicato- 

 rugose simply and evenly denticnlate-serrate strongly veined and 

 tomentose beneath, petioles simple eglandulose and as vcell as the 



* A precisely similar change of structure is seen in the common Hydrangea 

 {H. horlensis, Sm.), so common in the gardens of this island. 



t Torry and Gray reduce the N. American V. edule and V. Oxycocco^ to vars. 

 of our European V. Opulus, yet it seems hardly credible that the same species 

 should produce in one country an agreeably flavoured, and in another a nause- 

 ously lasting fruit. 



I Fl. Ross. i. pars 2, p. 31. 



§ Fl. Sibir. iii. p. 146. 



2 H 



