Calyx-lobes minute or obsolete. Corolla open urn-shaped, with a broadly spreading 5-cleft limb. Stamens 5. Stigmas 3. Fruit a berry-like juicy drupe, containing 3 small seed-like nutlets.—Shrubby plants, with a rank smell when bruised, pinnate leaves, serrate-pointed leaflets, and numerous small and white flowers in compound cymes. (The Latin name, perhaps from σαμβύκη, an ancient musical instrument.)
1. S. Canadénsis, L. (Common Elder.) Stems scarcely woody (5–10° high); leaflets 5–11, oblong, mostly smooth, the lower often 3-parted; cymes flat; fruit black-purple.—Rich soil, in open places, throughout our range, and south and west. June, July.—Pith white.
2. S. racemòsa, L. (Red-berried Elder.) Stems woody (2–12° high), the bark warty; leaflets 5–7, ovate-lanceolate, downy underneath; cymes panicled, convex or pyramidal; fruit bright red (rarely white). (S. pubens, Michx.)—Rocky woods, N. Scotia to Ga., and westward across the continent. May; the fruit ripening in June.—Pith brown. Both species occur with the leaflets divided into 3–5 linear-lanceolate 2–3-cleft or laciniate segments.
3. VIBÚRNUM, L. Arrow-wood. Laurestinus.
Calyx 5-toothed. Corolla spreading, deeply 5-lobed. Stamens 5. Stigmas 1–3. Fruit a 1-celled, 1-seeded drupe, with soft pulp and a thin-crustaceous (flattened or tumid) stone.—Shrubs, with simple leaves, and white flowers in flat compound cymes. Petioles sometimes bearing little appendages which are evidently stipules. Leaf-buds naked, or with a pair of scales. (The classical Latin name, of unknown meaning.)
§ 1. Cyme radiant, the marginal flowers neutral, with greatly enlarged flat corollas as in Hydrangea; drupes coral-red turning darker, not acid; stone sulcate; leaves pinnately veined; winter-buds naked.
1. V. lantanoìdes, Michx. (Hobble-bush. American Wayfaring-tree.) Leaves (4–8´ across) round-ovate, abruptly pointed, heart-shaped at the base, closely serrate, the veins and veinlets beneath with the stalks and branchlets very rusty-scurfy; cymes sessile, very broad and flat.—Cold moist woods, N. Brunswick to Ont. and Penn., and in the mountains to N. C. May. A straggling shrub; the reclining branches often taking root.
§ 2. Cyme peduncled, radiant in n. 2; drupe light red, acid, globose; stone very flat, orbicular, not sulcate; leaves palmately veined; winter-buds scaly.
2. V. Ópulus, L. (Cranberry-tree.) Nearly smooth, upright (4–10° high); leaves 3–5-ribbed, strongly 3-lobed, broadly wedge-shaped or truncate at base, the spreading lobes pointed, mostly toothed on the sides, entire in the sinuses; petioles bearing 2 glands at the apex.—Low ground, along streams, from N. Brunswick far westward, and south to Penn. June, July.—The acid fruit is a substitute for cranberries, whence the names High Cranberry-bush, etc. The well-known Snow-ball Tree, or Guelder-Rose, is a cultivated state, with the whole cyme turned into showy sterile flowers. (Eu.)
3. V. pauciflòrum, Pylaie. A low straggling shrub; leaves glabrous or loosely pubescent beneath, 5-ribbed at base, unequally serrate nearly all round, with 3 short lobes at the summit; cyme few-flowered; stamens shorter than the corolla.—Cold woods, Newf. and Lab. to the mountains of N. Eng., westward to N. Mich. and the Rocky Mts.