70 SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. CORNACER, 
below the middle and conspicuously eight-ribbed, the spreading ribs being united by reticulated veinlets. 
The flowers, which are crowded in dense cymose heads, are produced in the axils of minute acuminate 
scarious deciduous bracts. The calyx is terete, slightly urceolate, puberulous on the outer surface and 
yellow-green, or in one form light purple, with dark red-purple lobes ; the petals are strap-shaped, 
younded at the apex, spreading, somewhat puberulous on the outer surface, with thickened slightly 
inflexed margins; they are yellow-green, or in the purple-flowered form yellow below the middle on the 
inner surface and of a dark plum-color above it; the style is columnar and crowned with a truncate 
stigma. The fruit ripens in October, thirty or forty drupes bemg crowded into a dense spherical head, 
which is surrounded at the base by a ring of abortive pendulous ovaries; the drupes are half an inch 
long, ovoid, much flattened by mutual pressure, crowned with the broad persistent calyx, and bright 
red or orange-color, with thin mealy flesh and thick-walled one or two-seeded stones which are obtuse 
at both ends and scarcely grooved. The seeds are oblong, compressed, and covered with a very thin 
pale papery coat. 
Cornus Nuttallii is distributed from the valley of the lower Fraser River’ and Vancouver's 
Island,” southward along the coast of British Columbia, through western Washington and Oregon, and 
southward on the coast ranges of California to the San Bernardino Mountains and on the western 
slopes of the Sierra Nevada. It grows usually in moist well-drained soil under the shade of coniferous 
forests, ascending on the Cascade Mountains to an elevation of three thousand feet above the sea-level 
and of four or five thousand at the southern limits of its range, and attaining its greatest size near the 
shores of Puget Sound and in the Redwood forests of northern California. 
The wood of Cornus Nuttallii is heavy, exceedingly hard, strong, and close-grained, with a satiny 
surface susceptible of receiving a good polish; it contains numerous obscure medullary rays, and is 
light brown tinged with red, with highter colored sapwood composed of thirty to forty layers of annual 
growth. The specific gravity of the absolutely dry wood is 0.7481, a cubic foot weighing 46.42 pounds. 
It is used in cabinet-making, for malls, the handles of tools, etc. 
The flower-clusters of Cornus Nuttallii are more beautiful and conspicuous than the flowers of 
any other tree of the Pacific states; and im early spring, when the great flower-scales have grown to 
their full size, it lights up the dark and sombre forests which are the home of the Dogwood as with a 
bridal wreath, and as with tongues of flame late in the year, when the beauty of the brilliantly colored 
leaves and large heads of bright fruit is often heightened by the appearance of autumnal flowers. 
Cornus Nuttallit was discovered on the banks of the lower Columbia River by David Douglas® 
in 1825 or 1526; it was first mistaken for the Flowering Dogwood of the east, and was not distin- 
guished from that species until several years later by Thomas Nuttall * in his transcontinental journey.® 
1 Macoun, Cat. Can. Pi. i. 190. Europe to cultivate this magnificent tree, but although the seeds 
2G. M. Dawson, Canadian Nat. n. ser. ix. 331. germinate readily the young plants soon perish, and the right 
3 See ii. O4. method of managing them, so far as I have heard, has not yet 
4 See ii. 34. been discovered. 
5 Various attempts have been made in the eastern states and in 
EXPLANATION OF THE PLATES. 
Piate CCXIV. Cornus Norra. 6. A fruit cut crosswise, enlarged. 
1. A flowering branch, natural size. 7. An embryo, much magnified. 
2. A flower, enlarged. 
3. Vertical section of a flower, enlarged. PLATE CCXV. Cornus NuTrtTaLliil. 
4, A fruiting branchlet, natural size. 1. A flowering branch, with an involucre of six scales, natural 
®. Vertical section of a fruit, enlarged. size. 
2. A winter branchlet with head of flower-buds, natural size. 
