LXVI. CAPRIFOLIACEÆ.
Trees or shrubs, with watery juice, opposite petiolate leaves involute in the bud, with or without stipules, scaly buds, and fibrous roots. Flowers regular, perfect, with articulated pedicels, in terminal compound cymes; calyx-tube adnate to the ovary, 5-toothed; corolla epigynous, 5-lobed, the lobes imbricated in the bud; stamens 5, inserted on the tube of the corolla, as many as and alternate with its lobes; filaments slender, free; anthers oblong, introrse, 2-celled, the cells opening longitudinally; disk 0 (in the arborescent genera of the United States); ovary inferior or partly superior, 3—5 or 1-celled; style short, capitate, 3—5-lobed and stigmatic at apex; ovule solitary, suspended from the apex of the cell, resupinate; raphe dorsal; micropyle superior. Fruit drupaceous, crowned with the remnants of the style. Seeds with copious fleshy albumen; seed-coat membranaceous, adherent to the albumen; embryo minute, near the hilum; cotyledons ovoid or ovate; radicle terete, erect.
The Honeysuckle family with ten genera is most abundant in the temperate regions of the northern hemisphere, with a few species extending into the tropics and to beyond the tropics in the southern hemisphere. Many of the species, especially of Lonicera, Sambucus, and Viburnum, are cultivated in gardens for the beauty of their flowers and fruits.
CONSPECTUS OF THE ARBORESCENT GENERA OF THE UNITED STATES.
Leaves unequally pinnate; fruit with 3—5 nutlets.1. [Sambucus.] Leaves simple; fruit with 1 stone.2. [Viburnum.]