Handbook of Teees of the ISTortiieen States and Canada. 



359 



This is a small northern tree, occasionally 

 under most favorable conditions, attaining the 

 height of 25 or 30 ft. with trunk 6 to 8 or 

 exceptionally 12 inches in diameter, and is com- 

 monly a tall shrub. It inhabits rich well- 

 drained soil along the borders of forests, par- 

 tially cleared land and fence rows, where its 

 peculiar habit of ramification easily distin- 

 guishes it from its associates. It puts out 

 horizontal and upward inclined strightish 

 branches with many upturned branchlets on the 

 upper side and but few if any beneath. 

 This feature is best seen when the tree is leaf- 

 less and it is then quite as interesting an ob- 

 ject as in summer, when it is conspicuous on 

 account of its flat sprays of foliage inter- 

 spersed with clusters of white flowers, or later 

 red-stemmed clusters of blue berries. 



The w-ood is heavj^ a cubic foot weighing 



41.73 lbs., hard and very close-grained, adapted 



to use in turnery, etc.i 



Leaves mostly alternate and clustered at the 

 ends of the branchlets, ovate to oval, 3-5 in. long, 

 wedge-shaped or somewhat rounded at base, long- 

 acuminate, obscurely crenulate, pale tomentose at 

 first, but at maturity thin, dark green and glab- 

 rous or nearly so above, pale and apprpssed pubes- 

 cent beneath, with prominent arcuate veins ; 

 petioles slender, pubescent. Floiceis (May-,Iune) 

 creamy white, about 14 in. long in loose com- 

 pound terminal cymes ; petals narrow, rounded at 

 apex and reflexed. Fruit a subglobose blue drupe. 

 Mi in. in diameter, depressed at apex, tipped with 

 the remnant of the style, in loose red-stemmed 

 clusters ; flesh thin and bitter and short ovoid 

 somewhat pointed 2-ci;lled thick-walled nutlet with 

 many longitudinal grooves 



1. A. W., IV, 87. 



