Viburnum
2 of the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Viburnum. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a genus of plants of the natural order Caprifoliaceæ, having a fivetoothed calyx, a five-lobed, wheelshaped , bell-shaped, or tubular corolla, five stamens, three sessile stigmas, and a one-seeded berry. shrubs with simple leaves, natives chiefly The species are of the N. parts of the world. V. opulus is the guelder rose, or V. tinus is the laurustinus, both wellsnowball tree, and known ornamental shrubs. V. lantana, sometimes called the wayfaring tree, is a native of the warmer temperate parts of Europe and Asia, not infrequent in England, and often planted as an ornamental shrub. It is a large shrub or low tree, with large elliptic serrated leaves, downy star-like hairs on the under side. The young shoots are very downy. The flowers are small and white, in large dense cymes; the berries purplish black, mealy and mucilaginous, with a peculiar sweetish taste. They are useful in diarrhea and catarrh, and are used in Switzerland in the manufacture of ink. Bird lime is made from the bark of the roots in the S. of Europe, but is inferior to that made from the bark of the holly. The inner bark is very acrid, and was formerly used as a vesicant. The wood is white and hard, and is prized by turners. Tubes for tobacco pipes are made of the young shoots. Two North American species, V. pauciflorum and V. opulus, nearly allied to the guelder rose, produce berries of an agreeable acid taste which are used like cranberries.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
vi-bur'num, a genus of shrubs or small trees of the honeysuckle family. Several are found in North America . The high-bush cranberry, with its flat, acid, scarlet fruit, is a viburnum. The black haw, called also the sheep-berry and nanny-berry, belongs to this genus. The straight, tough stems of a northern species were much used by the Indians for arrows. They gave it the name of arrow-wood. One species has reclining branches that frequently take root and form loops like croquet wickets to trip up the wayfarer. It is called the hobble-bush in America. A near relative in England is called the wayfaring tree.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Both accounts place Viburnum in the honeysuckle family (Collier's calls it "the natural order Caprifoliaceæ"), and that was standard until DNA sequence studies in the 1990s and early 2000s showed the genus belongs instead with the moschatel and elder in the family Adoxaceae, where nearly all botanists now put it. Collier's treats the American highbush cranberry as V. opulus, the same species as the European guelder rose; today the American plant is usually separated as V. opulus var. americanum or as V. trilobum. The old medicinal uses have gone too: the acrid bark once employed as a blistering agent, and black haw bark long sold as an antispasmodic, have dropped out of medicine, while the genus remains one of the most planted of ornamental shrubs. The chief modern worry is the viburnum leaf beetle, Pyrrhalta viburni, an introduced European insect that has stripped viburnum plantings across the northeastern United States and eastern Canada.
Written for this edition, 2026.