74 FAMILIAR TREES 



Lanta'na and F. Opulus are, Lord Avebury points 

 out, "among the northern representatives of the 

 genus " ; and, although he merely alludes to this fact 

 as a general explanation of the dense felt of hairs on 

 the naked buds of the one species and of the presence 

 of leathery bud-scales and stipules in the others it 

 may not be insisting too much upon evidence of this 

 character to point out that whilst the Wayfaring-tree, 

 the species with naked buds, does not occur north of 

 York in Britain, or of Belgium on the mainland of 

 Europe, the Guelder-rose, tlie species with more ob- 

 viously protected buds, extends throughout Scotland 

 and into Scandinavia. 



This species, for which, from among a long list of 

 popular names, we prefer that of Guelder-rose, is a 

 straggling shrub or small tree, from six to twelve feet 

 high when in a wild state, but a little taller when 

 under cultivation, seldom having a single stem of any 

 height, and ill adapted to stand alone on lawn or in 

 garden. Scrambling in a large hedge or among other 

 bushes in a shrubbery, or — better still — overhanging a 

 pool or stream, it presents a series of charms which 

 have, in fact, endangered its continued existence in 

 many districts. Its long, slender, smooth, green 

 branches in such waterside situations often bend in 

 autumn beneath the weight of the ripening fruit, 

 though a few weeks earlier they have gaily held aloft 

 their attractive clusters of blossom. The twisrs are 

 round, or have but slight traces of four angles 

 towards their apices ; they have the smooth polished 

 surface so characteristic of the whole plant, and so 

 unlike its congener, the Wayfaring-tree ; and they are 



