714 TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



in length; involucral bracts beginning to unfold, enlarge and grow white in early 

 spring and when the flowers open in March at the south to May at the north, when 

 the leaves are nearly fully grown, forming a flat corolla-like cup 3'-4' in diameter, 

 becoming at maturity obcordate, I'-l^' wide, gradually narrowed below the middle 

 and notched at the rounded apex, reticulate-veined, pure white, pink, or rarely bright 

 red, deciduous after the fading of the flowers; flowers in dense many-flowered cymose 

 heads, in the axils of broadly ovate nearly triangular minutely apiculate glabrous 

 light green deciduous bractlets ^ in diameter; calyx terete, slightly urceolate, pu- 

 berulous, obtusely 4-lobed, light green; corolla-lobes strap-shaped, rounded or acute 

 at the apex, slightly thickened on the margins, puberulous on the outer surface, 

 reflexed after anthesis, green tipped with yellow; disk large and orange-colored; 

 style crowned with a truncate stigma. Fruit ripening in October, ovoid, crowned 

 with the remnants of the narrow persistent calyx and with the style, bright scarlet, 

 1' long, Y broad, with thin mealy flesh, and a smooth thick- walled slightly grooved 

 stone acute at the ends and 1 or 2-seeded; seeds oblong, pale brown. 



A bushy tree, rarely 40 high, with a short trunk 12'-18' in diameter, slender 

 spreading or upright branches, and divergent branchlets turning upward near the 

 ends, pale green or green tinged with red when they first appear, glabrous or slightly 

 puberulous, bright red or yellow-green during their first winter and nearly sur- 

 rounded by the narrow ring-like leaf-scars, later becoming light brown or gray tinged 

 with red; frequently toward the northern limits of its range a much-branched shrub. 

 Winter-buds formed in midsummer; the terminal covered by 2 opposite acute 

 pointed scales rounded on the back and joined below for half their length, and 

 accompanied by 2 pairs of lateral buds, each covered by a single scale, those of the 

 lower pair shedding their scales in the autumn and remaining undeveloped. Bark 

 of the trunk ^'-\' thick, with a dark red-brown surface divided into quadrangular 

 or many-sided plate-like scales. Wood heavy, hard, strong, close-grained, brown 

 sometimes changing to shades of green and red, with lighter colored sapwood of 30-40 

 layers of annual growth; largely used in turnery, for the bearings of machinery, the 

 hubs of small wheels, barrel-hoops, the handles of tools, and occasionally for en- 

 gravers' blocks. 



Distribution. Usually under the shade of taller trees in rich well-drained soil; 

 eastern Massachusetts to southern Ontario and southeastern Kansas, and south- 

 ward to central Florida and the valley of the Brazos River, Texas ; and on the moun- 

 tains of northern Mexico; comparatively rare at the north; one of the commonest and 

 most generally distributed inhabitants of the deciduous-leaved forests of the mid- 

 dle and southern states, ranging from the coast nearly to the summits of the high 

 Alleghany Mountains. 



Often planted as an ornament of parks and gardens in the eastern states. 



2. Cornus Nuttallii, Aud. Dogwood. 



Leaves ovate or slightly obovate, acute and often contracted into short points at 

 the apex, wedge-shaped at the base, faintly crenulate-serrate, and generally clus- 

 tered toward the ends of the branches, when they unfold coated below with pale 

 tomentum and puberulous above, and at maturity membranaceous, bright green and 

 slightly puberulous, with short appressed hairs on the upper, and woolly pubescent 

 on the lower surface, 4'-5' long, l^'-3' wide, with prominent pale midribs impressed 

 above, about 5 pairs of slender primary veins parallel with the margins and con- 

 nected by remote reticulate veinlets, in the autumn turning bright orange and 



