90 FAMILIAR TEEES 



they are mostly natives of the temperate regions 

 of the northern hemisphere. 



Among truly British plants there are but seven 

 species in this Order, belonging to five different genera. 

 The beautiful woody climber that gives its name to 

 the group can hardly be termed even a shrub ; but its 

 spirally twining stems with their bark coming away in 

 longitudinal strips are familiar objects to the wood- 

 lander as they strangle the young stenis of the Hazel 

 underwood. Its long tubular blossoms, so uniquely 

 divided into two unequal recurved lobes, made up, the 

 one of four petals and the other of a single one, are 

 remarkably unlike the symmetrical, and generally 

 small, five-pointed, star-like, white corollas of most of 

 the other members of the Family, such as the Guelder- 

 roses and the Elders. 



The genus Viburnum comprises about a hundred 

 species, or nearly a half of the Order. Few of them 

 can truly be dignified with the name of trees, though 

 all are woody. Their leaves are stalked and simple,- 

 though sometimes lobed, and their flowers are 

 symmetrical, white or tinged with pink, and grouped 

 in clusters, generally flat-topped. This symmetrical 

 form of corolla of five petals united below in a short 

 tube is somewhat inadequately termed " rotate," or 

 wheel-shaped, in technical language : " stellate " would, 

 perhaps, be a trifle more suggestive of its appear- 

 ance ; but, though usually small, it may reach a con- 

 siderable diameter. There are five stamens, whose 

 anthers burst inwards, so as to discharge the pollen 

 towards the centre of the flower ; and the ovary is sur- 

 mounted by three stigmas, though itterually it may 



