XIX. 1. THE PANICLED ELDER. 361 
The plants of this family are shrubs or small trees, with ap- 
parently articulated branches and young stems containing pith 
of extraordinary thickness and durability: simple or com- 
pound, opposite leaves: perfect and regular flowers in broad, 
terminal cymes; a five-cleft, persistent calyx, adhering almost 
throughout to the ovary; a five-lobed bell- or wheel-shaped 
corolla, with lobes alternate with the parts of the calyx; five 
stamens inserted in the tube of the couolla and alternate with 
its lobes; an ovary with one, three, or five cells, and an ovule 
in each; and a fruit, which is a pulpy or fleshy drupe, with 
one or three, one-celled, one-seeded nuts. 
Two genera, the Elder and Viburnum are found here, flower- 
ing shrubs or low trees, very widely diffused in distant regions 
of the northern temperate zone ; and, in New England, the con- 
spictious ornaments of the borders of fields and woods and the 
sides of enclosures, in the early part of summer. 
The Elder has compound leaves and a pulpy fruit with three 
nuts; the Viburnum has simple leaves and a fleshy fruit with 
one nut. 
XIX. 1. THE ELDER. SAMBUCUS. Toumefort. 
A genus of about twenty species of shrubs or perennial herbs, 
with a penetrating odor. Leaves opposite, pinnate, with the 
leaflets serrate, cut or laciniate, with two stipules or glands at 
the base of each. Flowers white or somewhat flesh-colored, 
usually fragrant, in compound cymes. There are two species 
in this State. 
Sp. 1. Tse Panictep Exper. SS. pibens. Michaux. 
This is usually a coarse-looking bush, four to six feet high, 
with a large, whitish stalk, becoming brown when old, dotted 
with rusty, oblong dots, which enlarge and give a rough and 
warty appearance to the older and darker part of the stem. 
The leaves are opposite, on large, round, fleshy footstalks, 
channelled above. The leaflets are five or seven, ovate-lance- 
shaped, rounded or acute, sometimes heart-shaped at base, 
47 
