CORNEL TRIBE 89 



English garden than now, for ladies of olden times not only made the fruit 

 into tarts, but prepared various articles of confectionery with it, and used it 

 at dessert. Tusser, who wrote in Queen Mary's time, calls the fruit Cornet 

 plum ; and Lord Bacon termed it Cornelian. Gerarde says : " The male 

 Cornell-tree groweth in most places in Germanic without manuring; it 

 groweth not wilde in Englande, but yet there be sundrie trees of them grow- 

 ing in the gardens of such as love rare and daintie plants, whereof I have a 

 tree or two in my garden." The Turks still use these fruits in sherbet. It 

 is more likely to be this tree than the Red Cornel of which Virgil says in his 

 "Georgics " — 



' ' The war from stubborn myrtle shafts receives, 



From Cornels jav'lins, and the tougher yew 



Receives the bending figure of a bow." 



The berries of the Chilian Cornel are a favourite fruit with the natives of 

 Chili, who make of them a sort of beverage which they term Theca. It is a 

 remarkable fact that the bark of the young twigs of Cornus florida, if rubbed 

 upon the teeth, renders them extremely white ; and the Indians extract a 

 good scarlet dye from the bark of its fibrous roots. Sir Charles Lyell remarks 

 of this plant : " When I arrived in Virginia, in April, I found the woods 

 everywhere enlivened by the dazzling white flowers of the Dogwood 

 (C. Jiorida), the average height of which somewhat exceeds that of our white- 

 thorn ; and when, as often happens, there is a background of cedars or pine, 

 the mass of flowers is almost as conspicuous as if a shower of snow had fallen 

 upon the boughs. As we sometimes see a pink variety of the wild thorn in 

 England, so there occurs here, now and then, though rarely, a pink Dogwood. 

 Having never remarked this splendid tree in any English shrubbery or park, 

 I had some fine young plants sent home from a nursery to several English 

 friends, and among others to Sir William Hooker, at Kew, who was not a 

 little diverted at my zeal for the introduction of a tree which had been well 

 established for many years in the British Arboretum. But now that I have 

 since seen the dwarfed and shrubby representatives of this species in our 

 British shrubberies, I am ready to maintain that it is still unknown in our 

 island. No Virginian who was not a botanist could ever recognise it in 

 England as the same jjlant as the Dogwood of his native land ; yet it is- 

 capable of enduring frosts as severe and protracted as are ever experienced 

 in the south of England ; and the cause of its flowers not attaining their full 

 size in our climate is probably a want of sufiicient intensity of light and heat." 

 2. Dwarf Cornel (C. suecica). — Leaves egg-shaped, smooth, sessile, and 

 opposite ; flowers few ; involucre of four leaves. Plant perennial. This is a 

 very different plant from the Cornel of our shrubbery, or that of our hedges, 

 being a herb, and not a shrub or tree. It has subterranean and creeping 

 woody stems, from which arise the flowering stems, about six inches in height. 

 The flowers are produced in July and August, and are dark purple, with 

 yellow stamens. At the base of the umbel are four egg-shaped yellow bracts, 

 tinged with purple. The red berries are considered to have tonic properties. 

 The Highlanders, who believe that they increase the appetite, give to the 

 plant the name of Lus-a-chrasis, plant of gluttony. The Dwarf Cornel groAvs 

 on most Alpine pastures in Scotland and the north of England, from York- 



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