viburnum

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. Any of various shrubs or trees of the genus Viburnum, having opposite leaves, showy terminal clusters of small white or pink flowers, and red or black drupes.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A genus of gamopetalous plants, of the order Caprifoliaceæ and tribe Sambuceæ. It resembles the related genus Sambucus, the elder, in its corymbose or thyrsoid inflorescence, but is distinguished by the absence of any pinnately parted leaves. There are about 80 species, natives of the northern hemisphere and of the Andes, with a few species elsewhere in the southern hemisphere and in Madagascar. They are shrubs or small trees, usually with opposite branchlets and large naked buds. The leaves are petioled and opposite, or rarely whorled in threes; they are entire, serrate or dentate, rarely lobed. The white or pinkish corymbs of flowers are somewhat umbelled or panicled, and are axillary or terminal; the flowers are usually wheelshaped, with five equal lobes, and a one- to three-celled ovary becoming in fruit a dry or fleshy ovoid or globose drupe usually one-celled and containing a single compressed and deeply furrowed seed. The fruit is edible but insipid in V. Lentago, acid in V. Opulus, astringent in others, in which it is said, however, to be edible after fermentation, and to have been made into cakes by the North American Indians. In several species, forming the section Opulus (also peculiar in its scaly buds), the marginal flowers, of a broad flat inflorescence, are enlarged and sterile. (See cuts under hobble-bush and neutral, and compare guelder-rose and snowball.) In the five other sections the flowers are all alike, and the winter buds, unlike most plants of temperate regions, are without scales. In a few Himalayan and Chinese species (the section Solenotinus) the flowers are tubular, elongated, and panicled, and in a few others funnelform. Three species occur in Europe, of which V. Tinus is the laurustinus, a winter-flowering shrub of southern Europe, in Corsica forming large forests, often cultivated for its ornamental evergreen leaves, white blossoms, and dark-blue berries. V. Opulus, the cranberrytree or high cranberry, in England also known as white dogwood, marsh- or water-elder, and gaiter-tree, is widely diffused through the north of both continents; in Norway it is used for the manufacture of small wooden articles, of spirits, and of a yellow dye. For the other European species, V. Lantana, see wayfaring-tree. Fourteen species occur within the United States: 11 in the northeast; the others, V. ellipticum near the Pacific, V. densiflorum and V. obovatum near the South Atlantic coast; V. acerifolium extends north to Fort Yukon, V. pauciflorum to Sitka. Two American species, V. Lentago and V. prunifolium, become small trees. The bark of several species is used in the United States as a domestic remedy, and the inner bark of V. Lantana is esteemed a vesicant in England. A beverage known as Appalachian tea is sometimes made from the leaves of V. cassinoides, an early-flowering, thick-leafed species of American swamps. Several species are known as arrow-wood, chiefly V. dentatum in the north, V. molle in the south, V. ellipticum in California. The species are somewhat widely known by the generic name, especially V. acerifolium, the maple-leafed viburnum, or dockmackie. The sweet viburnum is V. Lentago (for which see sheepberry). V. nudum is known as withe-rod, V. prunifolium as black haw or stag-bush, and V. lantanoides as hobble-bush or American wayfaring-tree. The preceding are among the most ornamental of native American shrubs, admired for their white flowers, usually compact habit, and handsome foliage, also for their fruit, a bright blue-black in V. prunifolium, V. pubescens, and V. acerifolium, blue in V. dentatum and V. molle, and bright-red in V. Opulus; that of V. Lantana is an orange-red turning dull-black. Garden varieties produced by cultivation from V. Opulus are the snowball, or guelder-rose, and the rose-elder. V. rugosum of the Canaries, V. tomentosum (V. plicatum) of northern China, and V. cotinifolium of Nepāl, are also esteemed ornamental shrubs.
2. n. [lowercase] A plant of this genus.

Wiktionary

1. n. any of many shrubs and trees, of the genus Viburnum, native to the Northern Hemisphere that have showy clusters of flowers

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. (Bot.) A genus of shrubs having opposite, petiolate leaves and cymose flowers, several species of which are cultivated as ornamental plants, as the laurestine and the guelder-rose.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. deciduous or evergreen shrubs or small trees: arrow-wood; wayfaring tree