88 CORNER 



perennial. When wandering along the country lanes, very early in the year, 

 while the trees of the wood and the bushes of the hedge are yet leafless, the 

 twigs and branches of this plant are often very conspicuous. They are almost 

 sure to be plentiful if the soil is of chalk or limestone ; and we have some- 

 times seen the Cornel so abundant in Kent that a wild hedge was, for a mile 

 together, half composed of these boughs. Many of the branches were so 

 red, so like twigs of coral, that its scientific specific name, and its name of 

 Bloody Twig, by which it is still called, and which Pliny termed it, seemed 

 appropriate, though unpleasing. It is also commonly called DogAvood, this 

 name having been given, it is said, because the berries were not fit even for 

 a dog ; but it probably had some other origin, since Dog-berry and Hound's- 

 tree were other of its old names, and it was also called Gaten-tree, both by 

 old herbalists and poets. The more probable derivation of the name is from 

 the dags or sharp-pointed skewers used by butchers, and made from the 

 shoots of the Cornel. The name Hound's-tree is said to have reference to a 

 former use of its bark in preparing a wash for mangy dogs. Chaucer calls 

 it Gaten-tree. In France the Cornel is called Le Cornouiller ; the Germans 

 term it Kornelbaum ; the Dutch, Kornoiljeboom ; the Italians, Corniola ; and the 

 Spaniards, Corniro. The plant is known in Russia as the Kuroslejepnik. 



Our wild Cornel is rather a bush than a tree, though by training it may be 

 made to acquire the height of twenty feet. Its foliage is of somewhat dull 

 green, the leaves strongly veined, and, in autumn, more or less tinged with 

 dark purple or red. The white flowers are produced in June and July, and 

 are succeeded by small berries, at first purple, but gradually becoming black. 

 These berries are bitter and astringent, and abound in an oil which in several 

 parts of the Continent is expressed or extracted by boiling, and used both for 

 burning in lamps and for cookery. They yield about a third of their own 

 weight in oil ; and M. Granier, in a paper addressed some years since to the 

 Institute of France, stated that the cost of its extraction did not exceed four 

 sous for a pound. The hard wood was once valued for pikes and javelins, 

 though the "good and beautiful Cornus " of Virgil is by most writers thought 

 to be another species, the Cornelian Cherry (Cdrnus mdscula). There is some 

 degree of astringency in the bark of our wild Dogwood, but it is not equal 

 to that of several North American species, which yield some of the best tonic 

 medicines used in that country, and scarcely inferior to Peruvian bark. The 

 compact wood of our tree is used for the manufacture of small articles, as 

 arrows, skewers, toothpicks, and lace-bobbins ; and the lai^ger wood of some 

 of the species found in other countries is serviceable for more important pur- 

 poses. The burnt ashes of Cornel wood afford a good charcoal for gunpowder. 



Our Cornel is well suited for plantations, thriving well under the dripping 

 of trees ; and several of the species are very ornamental to gardens and 

 shrubberies. The White-fruited Dc^-wood (C. alba) is often to be seen there ; 

 and the Cornelian Cherry is a well-known and favourite tree. The twigs of 

 this latter species have not the usual red tint of the Cornels, but are ash- 

 coloured ; and in early spring, when the little starry yellow flowers appear 

 on the leafless boughs, the plant is very conspicuous. The fruit is like a 

 small plum, but of red colour. Its flavour is harsh till it has hung some time 

 on the tree, when it is pleasantly acid. It was once much more valued in the 



