White and Greenish 



at the summit. From the midst of this whorl comes a cluster of 

 minute greenish florets, encircled by four to six large, showy, 

 white petal-like bracts, quite like a small edition of the flowering 

 dogwood blossom. Tight clusters of round berries, that are lifted 

 upward on a gradually lengthened peduncle after the flowers fade 

 (May July), brighten with vivid touches of scarlet shadowy, 

 mossy places in cool, rich woods, where the dwarf cornels, with 

 the partridge vine, twin flower, gold thread, and fern, form the 

 most charming of carpets. 



Other common dogwoods there are shrubs from three to ten 

 feet in height which bear flat clusters of small white flowers 

 without the showy petal-like bracts, imitating a corolla, as in the 

 two preceding species, but each little four-parted blossom attract- 

 ing its miscellaneous crowd of benefactors by association with 

 dozens of its counterparts in a showy cyme. Because these flow- 

 ers expand farther than the minute florets of the dwarf cornel or 

 the flowering dogwood, and the sweets are therefore more acces- 

 sible, all the insects which fertilize them come to the shrub dog- 

 woods too, and in addition very many beetles, to which their 

 odor seems especially attractive. (" Odore carabico o scarabeo " 

 Delpino.) The Round-leaved Cornel or Dogwood (C. circinata), 

 found on shady hillsides, in open woodlands, and roadside thickets 

 especially in rocky districts from Nova Scotia to Virginia, and 

 westward to Iowa, may be known by its greenish, warty twigs; 

 its broadly ovate, or round petioled, opposite leaves, short- 

 tapering to a point, and downy beneath; and, in May and June, by 

 its small, flat, white flower-clusters about two inches across, that 

 are followed by light-blue (not edible) berries. 



Even more abundant is the Silky Cornel, Kinnikinnick, or 

 Swamp Dogwood (C. Amonum)C. sericea of Gray found in 

 low, wet ground, and beside streams, from Nebraska to the At- 

 lantic Ocean, south to Florida and north to New Brunswick. Its 

 dull-reddish twigs, oval or oblong leaves, rounded at the base, 

 but tapering to a point at the apex, and usually silky-downy 

 with fine, brownish hairs underneath (to prevent the pores from 

 clogging with vapors arising from its damp habitat) ; its rather 

 compact, flat clusters of white flowers from May to July, and its 

 bluish berries are its distinguishing features. The Indians loved to 

 smoke its bark for its alleged tonic effect. (Illustration, p. 252.) 



The Red-osier Cornel or Dogwood (C. stolonifera), which has 

 spread, with the help of running shoots, through the soft soil of 

 its moist retreats, over the British Possessions north of us and 

 throughout the United States from ocean to ocean, except at the 

 extreme south, may be known by its bright purplish-red twigs ; 

 its opposite, slender, petioled leaves, rather abruptly pointed at 

 the apex, roughish on both sides, but white or nearly so beneath ; 



228 



