§ 3. Cyme never radiant; drupes blue, or dark-purple or black at maturity.
[*] Leaves 3-ribbed from the rounded or subcordate base, somewhat 3-lobed; stipules bristle-shaped.
4. V. acerifòlium, L. (Dockmackie. Arrow-wood.) Shrub 3–6° high; leaves soft-downy beneath, the pointed lobes diverging, unequally toothed; cymes small, slender-peduncled; stamens exserted; fruit crimson turning purple; stone lenticular, hardly sulcate.—Cool rocky woods, from N. Brunswick to N. C., and west to S. Minn.
[*][*] Leaves (with base inclined to heart-shaped) coarsely toothed, prominently pinnately veined; stipules narrowly subulate; no rusty scurf; fruit ovoid, blue or purple; the stone grooved; cymes peduncled.
[+] Stone flat; leaves all short-petioled or subsessile.
5. V. pubéscens, Pursh. (Downy A.) A low, straggling shrub; leaves ovate or oblong-ovate, acute or taper-pointed, the veins and teeth fewer and less conspicuous than in the next, the lower surface and very short petioles soft-downy, at least when young; fruit dark-purple; the stone lightly 2-sulcate on the faces.—Rocks, etc., Lower Canada to the mountains of Ga., west to Iowa and Minn. June.
[+][+] Stone very deeply sulcate ventrally; leaves rather slender-petioled.
6. V. dentàtum, L. (Arrow-wood.) Smooth, 5–15° high, with ash-colored bark; leaves broadly ovate, very numerously sharp-toothed and strongly veined; fruit 3´´ long; cross-section of stone between kidney- and horseshoe-shaped.—Wet places, N. Brunswick to N. Ga., and west to Minn. June.—The pale leaves often with hairy tufts in the axils of the straight veins.
7. V. mólle, Michx. Leaves broadly oval, obovate or ovate, scarcely pointed, coarsely crenate or repand-toothed, the lower surface, branchlets and cymes soft-downy, the latter with stellate pubescence; fruit oily, larger and more pointed, the stone as in n. 6, but less deeply excavated.—Coast of N. Eng. (Martha's Vineyard), to Tex.
[*][*][*] Leaves finely serrate or entire, bright green; veins not prominent; stipules none; whole plant glabrous or with some minute rusty scurf; fruit black or with a blue bloom, sweet, stone very flat and even, broadly oval or orbicular.