XIX. 2. THER SWEET VIBURNUM. 365 
a profusion of delicate, showy flowers. The branches and re- 
cent shoots are of a grayish brown, dotted, and often with a 
scaly or dusty surface. ‘The smaller stems and larger branches 
are of a dark purple, almost black. The branches are opposite, 
at large angles. ‘The leaves are broad oval, or lance-ovate, 
acute, rounded or sometimes heart-shaped at base, acuminate, 
sharnly serrate, smooth above, paler or ferruginous beneath; 
the footstalk is rather long, channelled above, conspicuously 
margined with an irregular, waved or glandular border. The 
leaf-stalk, fruit-stalk, under surface of the leaf and the mid-rib 
above are set with ferruginous, glandular dots or scales. The 
leaves are oiten half bent backwards. 
The flowers are in terminal cymes, sessile in the axil of a 
pair of leaves or branches. Five or more stalks spring nearly 
from one centre, and diverging an inch or more, divide repeat- 
edly ito three or more shorter branches, at the base of which 
is often visible a mimute linear bract. 'The pedicels are very 
short, terminating in a round ovary, surmounted by a calyx of” 
five minute segments, above which rests a salver-shaped corolla 
of one peta:. expanding with five oval. rounded, reflexed seg- 
ments of pure white. From the angles of these segments 11Se 
the five stamens, with slender, tapermg filaments, longer than 
the coiolla, and bearing on their pot a short. yellow anther. 
The great number of the anthers, in a head of flowers, gives 
a yellow tinge to the whole, and a very agreeable fragrance 1s 
diffused; amidst the flowers are often seen the leaves rising. 
The fruit is large, often half an inch or more long, on stout 
stems, oblong, flattened, and, when ripe in October, turns from 
a rich scarlet toa shming blue black, covered with a glaucous 
bloom and crowned with the permanent calyx-segments, sur- 
rounding the stigma. I[t is not unpleasant to the taste. The 
nut 1s oblong-oval, flattened, with an obiuse point, and grooved 
on both sides. The sweet viburnum is found from Canada to 
the mountains of Carolma and Georgia. 
There is a softness and richness about the flowers and foliage 
of the sweet viburnum, which distinguish it above all others of 
the same genus. 
It is hardly less beautiful in fruit, from the profusion of the 
