JOURNAL OF PROCEEDINGS. 271 



4. Thins with species 12-15; leaves perennial (always?), entire or 

 minutely sinuate-toothed, cymes even, berries purple or black, often 

 shining, stones tumid witli ruminated albumen. 



In explanation of the measurements given in the above table he would 

 add, that he had, in conformity with the usage now almost universal 

 among men of science, adopted the French decimal measure, and hoped it 

 would supersede even in common life the inconvenient measure of feet, 

 inches, and lines. For those not familiar with it, it will suffice to state that 

 the millimetre is about equal to half a line. 



Dr. Engelmann had observed similar, though not as strongly marked 

 differences in the fruits and stones of the different species of Cornus. Thus, 

 the stone of our common C. asperifolia (a small tree with us) is subglobose, 

 small, nearly smooth, marked with very slight furrows ; the eastern C. 

 circinata has larger stones, marked by indistinct undulations ; the low, 

 shrubby C. sericea of our swamps bears a stone twice as large, and quite 

 knotty, with thick ridges ; our Dogwood, C.florida, has a larger and elon- 

 gated stone, acute at both ends, and slightly grooved ; the stone of 

 the nearly allied Californian Cornus Nuttallii is still larger, obtuse at both 

 ends, and scarcely grooved, and that of the northern C. Canadensis is 

 from a rounded base elongated to a pointed tip, and is perfectly smooth. 

 He solicited botanists to furnish him with ripe fruit of any species of 

 Viburnum and Cornus within their reach, so as to enable him to prosecute 

 these investigations. 



