478 BRECK’S NEW BOOK OF FLOWERS. 
ment as the Rhododendron or Azalea, and may be propa- 
gated by seeds, layers, or cuttings. 
V. Opulus.—Cranberry Tree, High Cranberry.—“ A 
handsome low tree, five to ten feet in height, ornamented 
throughout the year with flowers or fruit. In May, or 
early in June, it spreads open at the end of every branch, 
a broad cyme of soft, delicate flowers, surrounded by an 
irregular circle of snow-white stars, scattered, apparently, 
for show. The fruit, which is red when ripe, is of a pleas- 
ant acid taste, resembling cranberries, for which it is 
sometimes substituted.” This is the parent of 
V. Opulus, var stérilis, the Guelder Rose or Snow- 
ball. — A common ornament of the garden, producing 
large bunches of white flowers, shaped like those of the 
Hydrangea. When grouped with the Laburnun, Lilacs, 
—the double-flowering Thorns, etc., it has a fine effect. 
In flower the last of May, and early in June; eight or 
ten feet high; readily propagated from suckers, layers 
and cuttings. 
V. macrocéphalum.—Great-clustered Snowball.—“ This 
is a new and splendid species, that has not been much, if 
any, cultivated in this country. M. Van Houtte describes 
it as found growing in the gardens about Chusan, China, 
where it forms a shrub, or tree, twenty feet high. It 
flowers every year, in May, producing its enormous clus- 
ters, which equal those of the old garden Snowball, or 
‘Guelder Rose,’ in purity of color, and far eclipses them 
in size and beauty. Each blossom is more than an inch 
across, and the clusters measure eight or ten inches in di- 
ameter. The leaves are regularly oval, with short petioles, 
and about three inches long. It flourishes in the open 
border, in the same soil as the common Snowball; and M, 
Van Houtte considers it one of the most beautiful addi- 
tions to the shrubbery.”—[ Downing. ] 
