XIX. 2. THE GUELDER ROSE. 363 
fives. Pedicel a slender, white thread, ending in a short calyx 
with five acute segments. Corolla a very short tube with five 
ovate, rounded divisions. Stamens five, short, attached to the 
corolla and alternating with its segments. Stigmas five, brown, 
sessile, on a conical ovary. The lower leaflets have often one 
or two leaf-like appendages. The berries are small, dark pur- 
ple, or nearly black, when ripe, with crimson juice. This plant 
has a near resemblance to the Common Elder of Europe, S. 
nigra, except that the latter is a tree of twenty or thirty feet in 
height. Sir J. E. Smith said of this, that the English ‘“ uncer- 
tain summer is established by the time the elder is in full flower, 
and is entirely gone when its berries are ripe”’ The same 
might be said with equal truth of our elder, which, like that, 
flowers in June and ripens its fruit in September; unless we 
take into consideration that transient return of soft weather 
and sunshine, called the Indian summer. Much use has always 
been made, in every part of Europe, of the medicinal and eco- 
nomical virtues of their elder. Thesame may be made of ours. 
An infusion of the juice of the berry is a delicate test for acids 
and alkalies.* An infusion of the bruised leaves is used by 
gardeners to expel insects from vines. A wholesome, sudorific 
tea is made of the flowers. 'The unopened flower-buds form, 
when pickled, an excellent substitute for capers. The abund- 
ant pith 1s the best substance for the pith-balls used in electrical 
experiments, and the hollow shoots are in great use with boys 
for pop-guns and fifes. 
XIX. 2. THE GUELDER ROSE. VIBURNUM. L. 
A genus of more than fifty species of shrubs or small trees, 
with opposite branches, often more or less distinctly angular ; 
opposite, undivided, or lobed leaves, with footstalks; and white 
flowers in terminal cymes, those of the margin sometimes sterile 
and with the corolla much enlarged. 
* See Annals of the Lyceum of New York, p. 42. 
