270 THE STORY OF PLANT LIFE 



celled. There is a single style, the stigma being 

 simple or branched. There is a single ovule in each 

 cell. The fruit is a berry or a drupe with one to four 

 stones, or a one- to four-celled stone, or two stones. 

 The seeds are oblong. 



In some American Cornacese the bark is tonic in 

 principle, like Cinchona bark. The burnt wood of 

 the Cornel yields good charcoal for gunpowder. 



Dogwood or Cornel (Cornus sanguinea). 



The hard character of the wood of this shrub is 

 denoted by the Latin cornus, cornu, which means a 

 horn, and this is the origin of the name Cornel. The 

 second Latin name refers to the red bark of the young 

 shoots. Parkinson said the fruit was not fit for dogs, 

 hence, perhaps, the names Dogwood, Dog-berry. 



Cornel does not grow in Scotland, being confined 

 largely to southern and central England and a few 

 parts of Ireland, and in Scotland it is only planted. In 

 Derbyshire on the Pennines it occurs up to 1050 ft. 

 or more. It is found also in the Channel Islands. 



The habitat is thickets, copses and hedges. 

 Cornel forms part of the coppice in damp oakwoods, 

 on clay and loam, on limestone in ashwoods, on 

 limestone scrub, on chalk scrub, and in ash-oak 

 woods on marls and calcareous sandstones. 



An erect shrub in habit, Cornel is somewhat 

 downy, with leaves and young branches red in 

 autumn {hence sanguinea), and the old bark is reddish. 



