CAPRIFOLIACEAE  , a natural

order of plants belonging to the sympetalous or higher division of Dicotyledons, that namely which is characterized by having the petals of the flower united . The plants are mainly shrubs and trees; British representatives are Sambucus (elder), Viburnum (guelder-rose and wayfaring tree), Lonicera (honeysuckle) (see fig.); Adoxa (moschatel), a small herb with a creeping stem and small yellowish-green flowers, is occasionally found on damp hedge-banks; Linnaea, a slender creeping evergreen with a thread-like stem and pink bell-shaped flower, a northern plant, occurs in fir-forests and plantations in the north of England and Scotland . The leaves are opposite, simple as in honeysuckle, or compound as in elder; they have usually no stipules . The flowers are regular as in Viburnum 2 ~-(-1 Flowering shoot of Lonicera Caprifolium, slightly reduced . 1, Fruit slightly reduced; 2, horizontal plan of arrangement of flower . and Sambucus, more rarely two-lipped as in Lonicera; the sepals and petals are usually five in number and placed above the ovary, the five stamens are attached to the corolla-tube, there are three to five carpels, and the fruit is a berry as in honeysuckle or snowberry (Symphoricarpus), or a stone fruit, with several, usually three, stones, as in Sambucus . In Sambucus and Viburnum the small white flowers are massed in heads; honey is secreted at the base of the styles and, the tube of the flower being very short, is exposed to the visits of flies and insects with short probosces . The flowers of Lonicera, which have a long tube, open in the evening, when they are sweet-scented and are visited by hawk-moths . The order contains about 250 species, chiefly natives of the north temperate zone and the mountains of the tropics . Several genera afford ornamental plants; such are Lonicera, erect shrubs or twiners with long-tubed white, yellow or red flowers; Symphoricarpus, a North American shrub, with small whitish pendulous flowers and white berries; Diervilla (also known as Weigelia), and Viburnum, including V . Opulus, guelder rose, in the cultivated forms of which the corolla has become enlarged at the expense of the essential organs and the flowers are neuter .