Order Lxxxii
CAPRIFOLIACEÆ.
This is an eminently beautiful order, consisting either of twining or erect shrubs with clusters of trumpetshaped fragrant flowers, or of fine bushes having cymes of white blossoms. The honeysuckle is the representative of the former, the dogwood of the latter. Here too is found the modest and delicate Linnæ'a, which, however inferior its attractions for the vulgar eye may be to those of its more ostentatious neighbours, yields to none of them in elegance or interest for the botanist. All the genera have a more or less astringent bark; that of Lonicera corymbósa is used in Chile for dying black; that of Cornus flórida in North America in intermittent fevers, as is also the bark of Córnus serícea, which, according to Barton, is scarcely inferior to Quinquina. The Elders are the link between honeysuckles and umbelliferous plants, to the latter of which they are allied by their stinking divided foliage and half herbaceous habit; their flowers are sudorific and soporific in a high degree, their leaves and inner bark are emetics and drastic purgatives. Triósteum perfoliátum is intermediate between this order and Rubiaceæ, with the former of which it agrees in its purgative, and with the latter in its emetic, qualities, which resemble those of ipecacuanha. All Caprifoliáceæ love shady cool places in both hemispheres; but few have been found in such as endure a very severe climate. 474 Caprifólium R. S. 475 Lonicéra R. S. 476 Symphória Ph. 477 Diervilla J. 478 Triósteum W. 292 Linnæ'a W.