REMARKS ON VIBURNUM AND CORNUS. 
Br Be. G. ENGELMANN. 
[From the Transactions of the Acad, of Sci. of St. Louis , yol. II., p. 269—271.) 
He then made some remarks about the fruit and seed of different species 
of Viburnum. Unfortunately botanists too frequently neglect to gather the 
ripe fruit, and the herbaria that he consulted furnished but scanty material 
for the interesting investigations he had instituted, and which he intend¬ 
ed to prosecute. The fruit, he stated, was described as an oval drupe or 
‘berry, red, dark blue, or black, with a juicy and edible pulp, and a crusta- 
ceous stone containing the minute embryo in a fleshy albumen. He found 
the berries of different sizes and generally more or less compressed, but, 
on the whole, offering no useful diagnostic characters, as might be expect¬ 
ed of such a pulpy fruit. The pulp contains, as is well known, saccharine 
matter (especially in our common “black haw,” Viburnum prunifolium), or 
it is more or less acidulous (e. g. in the “ tree-cranberry,’’ V. Opulus) /but 
he had found as a remarkable exception one species, the rare V. seabrellum, 
specimens of which, collected in Mississippi by Prof. E. Hilgard, were 
examined, with a pulp as oily as that of any Nyssa or of Olea itself. 
The most important diagnostic characters are found in the stone and 
the albumen. The stone is either flattened or it is thick, even, or marked 
with longitudinal grooves and ridges ; the albumen is described as fleshy, 
but he would rather call it horny, and it contains some oil; it is even and 
uniform, principally in the flat-seeded species, or more or less folded, or 
(as it is termed) ruminated, especially in the thick-see'ded species. 
In the following table are enumerated all the species the fruits of which 
he could examine. 
Viburnum. 
A. Stone flattened, oval, or orbicular ; albumen even, 
a. Stone without distinct markings. 
1. V. prunifolium (St. Louis and Texas), 10 mm. 
2. V. Lentago (Pennsylvania) - 10-11 “ ' 
3. V. obovatum (Georgia) - - 6^-8 “ 
4. V. nudum (N. Hamp. & Mississippi), 5i-6 “ 
£5. V. Opulus (Germany, Illinois) - 7-8| “ 
Yar. edule (Wisconsin) - - 6^-7^ “ 
long, 8i mm. wide. 
b. Stone with 3 more or less distinct grooves on flat or 
ventral, and 2 on convex or dorsal surface. 
6. V. pauciflorum (Rocky Mountains), mm. long, 5 mm. wide. 
7. V. acerifolium (Wis., N. Hamp., Ga.) 6-§-7 “ “ 5£-6£ “ “ 
8. V pubescens (Wisconsin, Louisiana) 6-7 “ “ 5£ “ “ 
9. V. dentatum (Wisconsin, unripe) 8 “ “ 4^ “ “ 
B. Stone thick, much longer than wide. 
a. Stone somewhat compressed; albumen not (in 10) or 
slightly (in 11) ruminated. 
10. V. seabrellum (Mississippi), with one wide 
ventral groove, - - - 7 mm. long, 4| mm. wide. 
11. V. lantanoides (Massachusetts), with six 
distinct grooves, - - - 7 “ “ 5 “ “ 
b. Stone oval or subglobose,. not compressed. 
a. Stone with a narrow and deep ventral groove ; 
albumen deeply excavated, slightly ruminated. 
12. V. microcarpum (Mexico) - - 4 mm. long. 3£ mm. wide. 
13. V. odoratissimum (India) - - 8-9 “ “ 5^ “ “ 
(3. Stone with very slight grooves, albumen oval, 
not excavated, very deeply ruminated. 
14. V. Tinus (Southern Europe) - 6^-8 mm. long, mm. wide. 
15. V. rugosum (Canary Islands), - 8-9 “ “ 5-6 “ 
2 3 4 5 . 6 7 8 9 10 Missouri 
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