DOGWOOD FAMILY. Cornacese. 



DOGWOOD FAMILY. Cornacece. 



Shrubs or trees, with opposite or alternate toothless 

 leaves, and generally perfect flowers — sometimes they 

 are dioecious ; that is, the two kinds of flowers grow on 

 separate plants ; or polygamous, that is, perfect, stami- 

 nate and pistillate flowers growing on the same plant or 

 different plants. The genus Cornns, within our range, 

 which is represented here by two species, has perfect 

 flowers. Cross-fertilization is effected mostly by bees 

 and the beelike flies. 



An exceedingly dainty little plant com- 

 Bunch berry mon on wooc *ed hilltops, and remarkable 

 Comus for its brilliant scarlet berries which grow 



Canadensis in small, close clusters. The leaves are 

 Greenish white light yellow-green, broadly ovate pointed, 

 *»y- " y toothless, and deeply marked by about 5-7 



nearly parallel, curving ribs ; they are set in circles. 

 The flowers are greenish and tiny, closely grouped in the 

 centre of four large slightly green- white bracts, or leaf- 

 lets, having the semblance of petals, and imparting to 

 the whole the appearance of a single blossom about an 

 inch broad. The flowers are succeeded in late August 

 by a compact bunch of exceedingly beautiful but insipid 

 scarlet berries, of the purest and most vivid hue. The 

 commonest visitors are the bees of the genera Andrena 

 and Halictus, together with many woodland flies — bee- 

 flies, and the familiar "bluebottle." 3-8 inches high. 

 In cool, damp, mossy woods ; frequently found on sum- 

 mits over 4000 feet high, among the Adirondacks and 

 the White Mountains. From Me., south to N. J., and 

 west to Ind., Minn., Col., and Cal. 



A tall shrub and often a tree, whose 

 Dogwood familiar flowers, appearing just before or 



Comus florida with the ovate deeper green leaves, have 

 Greenish white f our similar broad green-white or rarely 

 April-June pinkish bracts, ribbed, and notched on the 

 blunt tips. Fruit ovoid and scarlet, in small groups. 

 7-40 feet high. Vt., Mass., south to Ky. and Fla., and 

 west to Mo. and Tex. Name from comu, a horn, in al- 

 lusion to the hardness of the wood. 

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