What is "viburnum dentatum"

Arrowwood \Ar"row*wood`\, n. 1. A shrub ( Viburnum dentatum) growing in damp woods and thickets; -- so called from the long, straight, slender shoots. Also, any of several other similar small trees whose straight shoots were used for making arrows.

Viburnum dentatum — southern arrowwood or arrowwood viburnum or roughish arrowwood — is a small shrub, native to the Eastern United States and Canada from Maine south to Northern Florida and Eastern Texas.

Like most Viburnum, it has opposite, simple leaves and fruit in berry-like drupes. Foliage turns yellow to red in late fall. Localized variations of the species are common over its entire geographic range. Common differences include leaf size and shape and placement of pubescence on leaf undersides and petioles.

Larvae of moths feed on V. dentatum. Species include the unsated sallow or arrowwood sallow ( Metaxaglaea inulta) or Phyllonorycter viburnella. It is also consumed by the viburnum leaf beetle, Pyrrhalta viburni, an invasive species from Eurasia. The fruits are a food source for songbirds. Berries contain 41.3% fat.

The fruits appear blue. The major pigments are cyanidin 3-glucoside, cyanidin 3-sambubioside and cyanidin 3-vicianoside, but the total mixture is very complex.