340 



Minnesota Plant Life. 



hemlock or of the wild parsnips or cowbane, they often prove 

 fatal. To the parsley family belong some garden vegetables, 

 such as carrots and parsnips. Here, also, are the plants fur- 

 nishing coriander and caraway seeds. The perfume, myrrh, is 

 obtained from a European variety. 



Dogwoods. There are eight varieties of dogwood in Min- 

 nesota, all of them rather closely related. In dogwoods the 



flowers are rather incon- 

 spicuous and borne in heads, 

 to be regarded as compact 

 umbels. In some of the 

 varieties about four large 

 white, petal-like leaves are 

 produced just below the 

 head of flowers, so that, as 

 in the sunflower family, the 

 whole head resembles a 

 single flower. Two Minne- 

 sota species have these 

 handsome white leaves be- 

 low the flower heads. One, 

 the dwarf cornel, or bunch- 

 berry, is a little shrub from 

 two to eight inches in 

 height, with the upper part 

 of the stem herbaceous. 

 The above-ground branch, 

 which is generally simple, 

 arises from a prostrate, slender rootstock. The leaves are ovate, 

 with several strong longitudinal ribs, and are clustered in a 

 whorl below the pedicel of the flower-head. In fruit the dwarf 

 cornel produces from each flower a little ovoid or spherical 

 stone-fruit of a scarlet color. The fruits are aggregated in 

 heads as the flowers were, and form characteristic red bunches, 

 giving occasion to one of the common names. 



The other dogwood, in which conspicuous, white petal-like 

 leaves are clustered below the flowering head, has these leaves 

 very large, an inch or more in length, strongly notched at the 

 tip. Sometimes in this variety, known as the flowering dog- 



FIG. 166. Water-hemlock. After Chesnut. 

 F. B. 86, U. S. Dept. Ag. 



