A year among the trees

by Wilson Flagg

THE VIBURNUM.

Over all the land, save where excessive cultivation and dressing of the grounds have stripped the earth of its native garniture, the roadsides are adorned with the different species of Viburnum. We detect them in winter by their many colored branches and their finely divided spray. May clothes them with a profusion of delicate and sweet-scented flowers; lastly, autumn dyes their foliage purple and crimson, and hangs from their branches clusters of variegated fruit; so that as native ornaments of the borders of old fields and roads they are surpassed by no other shrubs. The Viburnum constitutes a great part of the underwood of our forests, thriving and bearing fruit under the deep shade of trees, but assuming a handsome shape only outside of the wood. The flowers, in circular clusters, or cymes, resemble those of the elder, but have less fragrance.