Distribution. Banks of streams; Arizona, Grand View Trail, Grand Cañon of the Colorado River and near Flagstaff, Coconino County, Globe, Gila County, and banks of the Rialta near Tucson, Pima County; common; New Mexico, near Silver City, Grant County; southern California (San Diego, Los Angeles, Ventura and Kern Counties).
3. [Sambucus callicarpa] Greene.
Leaves 6′—10′ long, with a stout slightly grooved petiole and 5—7, usually 5, elliptic finely or coarsely serrate leaflets, acuminate and long-pointed at apex, cuneate and often unsymmetric at base, dark green and glabrous on the upper surface, paler and more or less villose-pubescent on the lower surface, especially along the slender midrib, 2½′—5′ long and ½′—2′ wide; petiolules ⅛′—¼′ or that of the terminal leaflet up to 1½′ in length. Flowers on pedicels ⅛′ long, in ovoid to semiorbicular cymes, usually 2½′—3′ long and broad, often somewhat flattened at maturity, on stout peduncles 1½′—3′ in length, about ⅓′ in diameter, with white or yellow slightly obovate petals rounded at apex, and stamens rather shorter than the lobes of the corolla. Fruit about ½′ in diameter, bright red or rarely chestnut color (f. Piperi Sarg.); nutlets smooth.
A tree, occasionally 25°—30° high, with a trunk 10′—12′ in diameter, slender branchlets occasionally puberulous early in the season, becoming glabrous, light brown, separating on the surface into thin scales.
Distribution. River banks in low moist soil, from sea-level in the neighborhood of the coast up to altitudes of 7000°—8000°; coast of Alaska (Skagway), southward along the coast to Marin County, California, and inland to the western slopes of the Cascade and Sierra Nevada Mountains, southward to Amador County; the f. Piperi in western Washington.
2. VIBURNUM A. L. de Juss.
Trees or shrubs, with tough flexible branchlets, and large winter-buds naked or covered with scales, those of the arborescent North American species enclosed in one pair of valvate scales, the buds containing flower-bearing branches ovoid, swollen below the middle and contracted into a long or short point and subtended by 2 minute lateral generally abortive buds formed in the axils of the last leaves of the previous year, those containing sterile shoots narrow-lanceolate, slightly angled, acute; axillary buds acute, much flattened, and much smaller than the terminal bud. Leaves deciduous (in the American species), without or rarely with stipules, the first pair rudimentary, with small blades and broad boat-shaped petioles, caducous (in the North American arborescent species). Flowers on short bracteolate or bibracteolate pedicels, in terminal or axillary umbel-like flat or panicled cymes, their bracts and bractlets minute, lanceolate, acute, caducous; calyx-tube cylindric, the limb short, equally 5-lobed, persistent on the fruit; corolla rotate, equally 5-lobed, spreading and reflexed after anthesis; stamens inserted on the base of the corolla; filaments elongated, exserted; anthers bright yellow; ovary inferior, 1-celled; style conic, divided at apex into three stigmatic lobes. Fruit 1-celled, with thin sweet acidulous or oily flesh, stone (in the North American arborescent species) coriaceous, oval, short-pointed at apex; much flattened, dull reddish brown, slightly pitted. Seed filling the cavity of the stone, concave on the ventral face, bright reddish brown, the thin coat projected into a red narrow irregular often erose marginal border.
Viburnum with a hundred species is widely and generally distributed through the temperate regions of the northern hemisphere, and occurs on the mountains of central and western South America, on the Antilles, the islands of the Malay Archipelago, and Madagascar. Of the fifteen North American species four are small trees. Many of the species produce beautiful flowers and fruits, and are frequently cultivated as ornaments of parks and gardens.
Viburnum is the classical name of one of the European species.