34 FAMILIAR FEATURES OF THE ROADSIDE. 



bnnclies of purple-black berries, ripe in August, are 

 used for making a medicinal elder-berry wine. 



Still another species, the red-berried elder {Sam- 

 Jnicus racemosa), is common beside the road. The 

 flowers, clustered in a pyramidal panicle, appear in 

 May. The leaves usually have five leaflets. The fruit 

 is ripe in June ; in color effect it is one of the most 

 striking and beautiful bits of decoration which the 

 woodland border presents to the eye in early summer. 

 The tiny berries are translucent red, and grouped in 

 effective clusters among the ornamental dark-green 

 leaves. This species grows from two to twelve feet 

 high ; the common elder is rarely over ten feet high. 

 I am surprised to note that in the Field, Forest, and 

 Garden Botany Gray calls the flowers of the elder 

 scentless; if one should apply the nose to a good, 

 spreading cluster of the blossoms, I think the experi- 

 ment would furnish an all-sufficient proof to the con- 

 trary. The common elder is a familiar object along 

 the roads of central New Hampshire, and it is quite 

 as familiar to those who pass over the roads in 

 southern New York. The red-berried elder is rather 

 rare in northern New Hampshire. 



Succeeding the elders in order come the Vibur- 

 nums, low, straggling shrubs only occasionally found 

 beside the road. One of the commonest of these, 

 dockmackie ( Viburnum acerifolium), is confined to 



