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Updated: June 17, 2025
A European species , deciduous, and growing from 10 feet to sometimes fully 20 feet in height. The leaves are bright, shining green, and much larger than those of our native species. Flowers, purplish-white, appearing in June; the capsules large, deep red, and when open contrasting very effectively with the bright orange arils in which the seeds are enveloped.
The needs for these are obvious buoyancy in water and resistance to wetting for the first, some form of parachute for the second, and some attaching mechanism or attractive structure for the third. Special outgrowths, arils, of the seed-coat are of frequent occurrence.
Red-stalked clusters of black berries hang from the vines of the Virginia creeper among leaves just touched with the hectic flame that tells of their passing, all too soon. At the sign of the sumac, tall torches of garnet berries rise. Down the bank, the bittersweet sends trailing arms jeweled with orange-colored pods just opening to display the scarlet arils within.
In other families each flower of such an inflorescence would be subtended by a bract, according to the general rule that in the higher plants side branches are situated in the arils of leaves. Bracts are reduced leaves, but the spikes of the cruciferous plants are generally devoid of them. The flower-stalks, with naked bases, seem to arise from the common axis at indefinite points.
In the last named the common flower-stalk is lacking and the flowers of the umbel seem to be borne in the arils of the basal leaves. In other genera such nearly allied species are more or less universally recognized.
If it proves to be real atavism and rare, the case should be accurately described and figured, or photographed if possible; and the exact position of the reverting bud should be ascertained. Very likely the so-called dormant or resting buds are more liable to reversions than the primary ones in the arils of the leaves of young twigs.
It likes a shady situation, and rich, rather damp soil. An indigenous species, rarely exceeding 6 feet in height, and rendered very effective in autumn by reason of the pale scarlet fruit, which, when fully ripe, and having split open, reveals the orange-coloured arils of the seeds. It, too, delights to grow in the shade.
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