The local names for this shrub include Mealy-tree, Whipcrop, Cotton-tree, Cottoner, Coventree, Lithe-wort, Lithy-tree, Twist-wood, White-wood. Mealy-tree, Cotton-tree, Cottoner, and White-wood all have obvious reference to the appearance of the young shoots and leaves, due to the presence of the white hairs with which they are covered. Lithe-wort and Lithy-tree, also Twist-wood and Whipcrop, indicate the supple and elastic character of the branches, which are often used instead of Withy to bind up a bundle of sticks or vegetables, or to make a hoop for a gate-fastener. In Germany the shoots, when only a year old, are used in basket-weaving, and, when a year or two older, serve for pipe-stems.
[Illustration: _Pl. 128._ Wayfaring Tree.]
Although the Guelder Rose and the Wayfaring-tree are very closely related, the differences between them are so great that there is little danger of any person with ordinary powers of observation confusing them. The Guelder Rose does not grow so tall as its congener, twelve feet being about the extreme height to which it attains in a wild state, and ordinarily it is several feet less. It is not so fond of dry soils, and is more frequently found in the copse, where it is not subject to the extremes of heat and cold that have produced the hairy covering of _V. lantana_. The stems and branches are quite smooth, and the leaf-buds are wrapped in scales. The young leaves, it is true, when they break from the bud, are covered with down, but they throw this off as they expand to their full size, and become smooth on either side. Instead of the leaf being heart-shaped, it is divided into three deeply toothed lobes, and it will be noted that at the base of the leaf-stalk there is a pair of slender stipules, which _lantana_ never has. The cyme or flower-head is more rounded, and whilst the mass of flowers are of the same size (a quarter of an inch) as those of the Wayfaring-tree, those in the outer row are three times the size--but they are entirely without stamens or pistil! It would appear that in order to make the flower-cluster more conspicuous, and thus attract insects, the material that should have gone to furnish these organs has been used up in the broader and whiter corolla. The inner and perfect flowers are creamy-white, bell-shaped, and they secrete honey. Both stamens and stigma mature simultaneously. The fruits are almost round, and of a clear, translucent red. Respecting these fruits, we cannot forbear from quoting a remark of Hamerton's. He says, writing as the French recorder of the _Sylvan Year_: "For any one who enjoys the sight of red berries in the most jewel-like splendour, there is nothing in winter like the Viburnum, the species we call _Viorne obier_, and if you meet with a fine specimen just when it is caught by the level rays of a crimson sunset, you will behold a shrub that seems to have come from that garden of Aladdin where the fruit of the trees were jewels." These fruits, though enticing to the sight, and juicy, are nauseous to the taste.