Hardy Ornamental Flowering Trees and Shrubs eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 199 pages of information about Hardy Ornamental Flowering Trees and Shrubs.

Hardy Ornamental Flowering Trees and Shrubs eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 199 pages of information about Hardy Ornamental Flowering Trees and Shrubs.

V. LENTAGO.—­Sheepberry and Sweet Viburnum.  North America, 1761.  This resembles our native V. Lantana, with dense clusters of white blossoms succeeded by black berries.

V. MACROCEPHALUM (syn V. Fortunei).—­China, 1844.  This is a Chinese species, but one that cannot be depended on as hardy enough to withstand our most severe winters.  It has very large heads or panicles of white neutral flowers.  Against a sunny wall and in a cosy nook it may occasionally be found doing fairly well, but it is not to be generally recommended.

V. NUDUM.—­American Withe Rod.  Canada to Georgia, 1752.  This is also worthy of being included in a selection of these shrubs.

V. OPULUS.—­Guelder Rose.  A native shrub of great beauty, whether in foliage, flower, or fruit.  The leaves are variously lobed or deeply toothed, large and handsome, and the flower heads of good size, flat, and composed of a number of small flowers, the outer only being sterile.  Individually the flowers are dull and inconspicuous, but being produced in amazing quantity, they have a very pleasing and effective appearance.  The great bunches of clear pinky berries render a fair-sized plant particularly handsome and attractive, and for which alone, as also beauty of autumnal foliage, the shrub is well worthy of extensive culture.  It grows fully 15 feet high, and may frequently be seen as much through.  V. Opulus sterilis (Snowball Tree) is one of the commonest occupants of our shrubberies, and a decidedly ornamental-flowering shrub.  The large, almost globular flower heads hanging from every branch tip, are too well-known to require description, and have made the shrub one of the most popular in ornamental planting.

V. PAUCIFLORUM is a native of cold, moist woods from Labrador to Alaska, and may best be described as a miniature V. Opulus.  It rarely grows more than 4 feet high, with small cymes of flowers, that are devoid of the neutral flowers of that species.

V. PLICATUM, from Japan 1846, is another very beautiful and desirable shrub, of rather dwarf, spreading growth, and having the leaves deeply wrinkled, plaited, and serrated on the margins.  The flowers resemble those of the commonly cultivated species, but they are rather larger, and of a purer white.  It is a decidedly ornamental species of easy growth in any good soil, and where not exposed to cold winds.

V. PRUNIFOLIUM, New England to Carolina, 1731, with Plum-like leaves, and pretty white flowers, is another free-growing and beautiful North American species.

V. PYRIFOLIUM.—­Pear-leaved Viburnum.  Pennsylvania to New Jersey, 1812.  This is a rarely-seen, but very ornamental species, with oval-shaped, finely-toothed leaves, that are borne on short, slightly-winged stalks about half-an-inch long.  Flowers sweetly scented, white, and in broad corymbs, the feathery appearance of the long, projecting stamens, each tipped with a golden anther, adding considerably to the beauty of the flowers.

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Hardy Ornamental Flowering Trees and Shrubs from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.