OSO-BERRY.
Nuttallia cerasiformis, Torr. and Gray. Rose Family
Deciduous shrubs; two to fifteen feet high. Leaves.—Broadly oblanceolate; two to four inches long; narrowed into a short petiole. Flowers.—White; in short terminal racemes; diœcious; three to eleven lines across. Calyx.—Top-shaped, with five-lobed border. Petals.—Five; inserted with ten of the stamens on the calyx; broadly spatulate. Stamens.—Fifteen. Ovaries.—Five. Styles short. Fruit.—Blue-black, oblong drupes; six to eight lines long. Hab.—Chiefly the Coast Ranges from San Luis Obispo to Fraser River.
About the same time that the beautiful leaves of the buckeye are emerging from their wrappings, we notice in the woods a shrub which has just put forth its clusters of bright-green leaves from buds all along its slender twigs. Amid their delicate green hang short clusters of greenish-white flowers. These blossoms have a delicious bitter fragrance, redolent of all the tender memories of the springtime.
[WOOD ANEMONE—Anemone quinquefolia.]
![[WOOD ANEMONE—Anemone quinquefolia.]](#3624944100741987669_f008.png.id-4187061700937376669.wrap-0.html.html){kind=link}
This shrub is usually mistaken for a wild plum; and the illusion is still further assisted when the little drupes, like miniature plums, begin to ripen and hang in yellow and purple clusters amid the matured leaves.