240 TREE ANCESTORS 



surrounding them. The latter, in our eastern species, show the 

 harder brownish apical notches that preserve the shape they had 

 when they were merely leaves or scales protecting the bud before 

 they grew out to form the showy bracts. 



In the eastern United States the name dogwood refers primarily 

 to the so-called flowering dogwood as contrasting it with some of 

 the less conspicuous forms that lack the showy bracts. Its scientific 

 name is Cornus florida, and it is commonly a small tree with slender 

 spreading or upright branches, the flower heads with large bracts 

 which are generally white but often pink or reddish, and notched 

 at their tips. The fruits are in clusters, bright scarlet in color, 

 and very beautiful. 



The dogwood is usually an under tree of the forest and it is found 

 from Massachusetts to Ontario, and eastern Kansas and southward 

 to central Florida and Texas, reappearing on the uplands of northern 

 Mexico where it was apparently left during the Pleistocene, or time 

 immediately preceding the present, by the development of the arid 

 country along the international boundary. The wood is close 

 grained and heavy and much used for turnery, bearings, handles, 

 and occasionally for engravers' blocks. It is never abundant enough 

 to be classed as lumber. 



The dogwood is frequently planted in parks and on private 

 lawns in our eastern States, and forms a most attractive mass of 

 color in both the vernal and autumnal seasons. Nothing is more 

 beautiful than the rich woods of the Middle and South Atlantic 

 States with dogwood interspersed with the leafless but brilKant 

 red-bud or Judas-tree (Cercis). Two of our other native dogwoods 

 which reach the stature of trees have inconspicuous blossoms and 

 are little known. The fourth and only other showy species is the 

 western dogwood, Cornus nuUalli. Like its eastern relative it 

 flowers in the spring of the year, its button-like cluster of small 

 greenish yellow flowers being surrounded by from four to six 

 showy white or faintly pinkish petal-like bracts an inch or two in 

 length. These, unlike those of the eastern flowering dogwood, are 

 pointed and not indented at their tips. The berries are a shiny 

 red and much like those of its eastern brother. The wood is 

 lighter and less dense, and but little used. 



