136 PRACTICAL FOKESTRY, 



Fruit in an ovoid imbricated cone. A small tree fiom Tampa, 

 Florida, southward to Brazil, in. sandy soils. 



CORDIA, Linn, Plumier. 



Sub-tropical or tropical trees, and slimbs of the East and 

 West Indies, and other warm climates. Higlily valued as oma- 

 meutal trees. The greater portion of the species are American. 

 Two of the foirr foimd in the United States reach a hight of 

 twenty or more feet. 



Cordia Boiis*ieri, A. DC. Leaves oval, or oblong-ovate, soft, 

 woolly, but becoming smooth or rugose when old. Flowers 

 white, with yellow center ; five-lobed, and rather downy on 

 outside. Two to four one-celled hard seeds, enclosed in a 

 small, pulpy fruit. A small tree, twenty feet high, along the 

 southei-n border of Texas and New Mexico, and westwai-d. 



C. Sebestena, Linn. — Eough-leaved Cordia. — Leaves large, 

 four to eight inches long, ovate-oblong, rough to the touch. 

 Flo^vers are deep yellow-orange, in large, terminal corymbose 

 racemes. Fruit is a round, or pear-shaped drupe, containing a 

 deeply furrowed nut. A handsome, ornamental tree in South 

 Florida, and the West Indies. The botanist, Catesby, states 

 that the wood of this species is of a dark brown, approaching to 

 black ; very heavy, and containing a gum, in smell and appear- 

 ance resembhng that of Aloes, In the Bahama Islands is called 

 Lignum Aloes (NuttaU's North American Sylva, Vol. II. p. 146.) 



coExus, Tour. — Dogicoocl. 

 A large genus, i^rincipally shrubs and small trees, a few per- 

 ennial herbs, mostly of the northern hemisphere ; one in South 

 America. Fifteen of the twenty-five species, known to botan- 

 ists, are indigenous to the United States, but only two reach 

 the hight of twenty feet or more. Flowers perfect, small, in 

 compact clusters or heads, usually quite inconspicuous, but in 

 some species they are enclosed at first in a corolla-like involucre, 

 which, upon exj^anding, is very showy. This flower-like envelop 

 is usually referred to as the flower of the common Dogwood of 

 this country. 



Cornns florida, Linn. — Flowering Dogwood. — Leaves ovate, 

 pointed, smooth on both sides. Flowers small, greenish-white, 

 enclosed in a large four-leaved, white involucre, sometimes 

 tinged with red. Fruit an oval, bright red drupe, with an 

 agreeable tasted pulp, much sought by several species of birds. 



