74 CORNUS FLORIDA. 
The Cornus florida, or flowering Dogwood, is 
the largest and most splendid of its genus, and is 
one of the chief ornaments of our forests. Asa tree 
it is rather below the middle stature, not usually 
reaching the height of more than twenty or thirty 
feet. It is however among the most conspicuous 
_ objects in the forests, in the months of April, May 
and June, according to its’ latitude, being then 
covered with a profusion of ‘its large and ele- 
gant flowers. In Massachusetts, especially about 
Boston, it is not a common. tree, only scatter- 
ed individuals appearing here and there in the 
woods. In the Middle States it is extrémely com- 
mon, especially in moist woods. Michaux informs 
us, that in the Carolinas, Georgia and the Floridas 
it is found only on the borders of swamps, and 
never in the pine barrens, where the soil is too 
dry and sandy to sustain its vegetation. “It is al- 
so not yery common in the most fertile parts of 
the Western States, being chiefly found where the 
soil is of secondary quality.* == 8 
* Mr. William Bartram, in his travels in Georgia and Florida, gives 
the following account of the appearance of this tree near the banks of 
the Alabama river. We now entered a very remarkable grove of 
Dogwood trees, ( Cornus florida, ) which continued nine or ten miles 
unalterable, except here and. there a towering Magnolia grandiflora. 
The land on which they stand is an exact level ; the surface a shallow, 
loose, black mould, on a’ stratum of. stiff, yellowish clay. These trees 
