The order _Caprifoliaceæ_ includes the Common Elder (_Sambucus nigra_), the white or cream-coloured flowers of which are so conspicuous in our woods and hedgerows in June. This tree grows to a height of fifteen or twenty feet, and its young branches are remarkable for the large quantity of pith they contain. The general form of the leaves and the arrangement of the flowers are seen in our illustration. Each flower has a calyx with five small teeth; a corolla with a short tube and five spreading limbs; five stamens attached to the base of the corolla; and an inferior ovary. The fruit is a black, berry-like drupe containing (usually) eight little, seedlike stones.
The Guelder Rose or Water Elder (_Viburnum Opulus_), of the same order, is a flowering shrub, usually six or eight feet high, moderately common in moist woods and copses, especially in the South, bearing showy cymes of white blossoms in June and July. The cymes are flat-topped, consisting of numerous flowers, the outer of which are much larger, often nearly an inch in diameter, but without stamens or styles, while the others are perfect, with five stamens and three sessile styles. The fruit is a blackish-red, almost globular, slightly-flattened berry, containing a single seed. The cultivated variety of this shrub, known as the Snowball Tree, has large, globular cymes of flowers, all of which are large and barren.
The Great Valerian or All-heal (_Valeriana officinalis_--order _Valerianaceæ_) is moderately common in moist woods, and is rather widely distributed. It is an erect plant, from two to four feet high, flowering from June to August. There seems to be two distinct varieties of this plant, one with from four to six pairs of leaflets, and the other with from six to ten pairs, in addition to the terminal leaflet in each case. The flowers are small, flesh-coloured or nearly white, in terminal and axillary corymbs. The little inferior ovary is surmounted by a calyx which is compactly rolled in at first, but which expands into a spreading, feathery pappus as the fruit ripens. The corolla is tubular, with five short, equal, spreading lobes. It is not spurred as in the case of the Red Valerian (p. 302), but the base of the tube is pouched on one side. This plant is shown on Plate II, Fig. 1.