28 HOUGH'S AMERICAN WOODS. 



HABITAT. Newfoundland and Canada west to Manitoba and south- 

 ward throughout eastern United States generally. 



PHYSICAL PROPERTIES. Wood heavy, hard, very closed-grained and 

 taking a beautiful polish, of a light chocolate-brown color and with buff- 

 white sap-wood. Specific Gravity, 0.8618; Percentage of Ash, OJ>8; 

 Relative Approximate Fuel Value, 0.8585; Weight of a Cubic Foot in 

 Pounds, 53.71. 



USES. Very little use is made of this tree. Though a fine tree, for a 

 Thorn, it lacks the attributes which give the Cock-spur Thorn favor for 

 ornamental purposes, and its wood though excellent in turnery and for 

 fuel is not found in quantities large enough to be of much market value. 



MEDICINAL PROPERTIES are not known of this species. 



ORDER CORN ACE JE : DOGWOOD FAMILY. 



Leaves opposite (except in one species), simple, mostly entire. Flowers in cymes, 

 often involucrate, polypetalous (exceptionally apetalous), 4-numerous ; calyx-tube 

 adherent to the ovary, its limb minute ; petals valvate in the bud, oblong, sessile, 

 and, with the stamens, borne on an epigynous disk in the perfect flowers ; ovary 

 1-celled, bearing a single suspended ovule ; style single, somewhat club-shaped. 

 Fruit a 1-3-seeded baccate drupe, bearing the persistent limb of the calyx. 



Trees, shrubs or rarely herbs, with bitter, tonic bark. 



GENUS CORNUS, TOURNEFORT. 



Leaves opposite (excepting one species, C. alternifolia), simple deciduous, entire, 

 without stipules and clustered at the ends of the branchlets; bud-scales accrescent. 

 Flowers perfect (in some foreign species dioecious), small, 4-numerous, in naked 

 cymes, or in heads surrounded by a corolla-like involucre; calyx with 4 minute 

 segments; petals distinct, oblong, spreading, sessile; stamens exserted, with slender 

 filaments; pistil solitary, with slender style, terminal stigma and ovary inferior; 

 cells usually 2, each containing a single suspended ovule. Fruit a small drupe con- 

 taining a 2-celled and 2 seeded stone; seeds oblong with embryo straight or nearly 

 so, and surrounded with copious albumen. 



Trees, shrubs and perennial herbs with bitter tonic bark, chiefly of the northern 

 temperate zone of both hemispheres. (Cornus is the Latin for horn, in allusion to 

 the hardness of the wood.) 



87. CORNUS ALTERNIFOLIA, L. f. . 

 ALTERNATE-LEAVED DOGWOOD OR CORNEL. 



Ger., Wechselblattriger Hartriegel ; Fr., Cornuiller alter mfeuille ; Sp., 



Madera de perro. 



SPECIFIC CHARACTERS: Leaves alternate or irregularly scattered and clustered 

 at the ends of the greenish branchlets, ovate to lance-oval, acute at base, long- 

 pointed, beneath whitish and furnished with closely appressed minute pubescence 

 above, somewhat rugose and depressed over the long prominent veins, margins ob- 

 scurely crenulate-toothed and somewhat reflexed, petioles rather long (l-2^ in.), 

 involute in vernation. Flowers appear after the leaves have expanded, cream-col- 

 ored without involucre, in terminal loose flat puberulous cymes. Fruit a bright 

 blue drupe about 1-4 in. in diameter, borne on bright red upright spreading stems in 

 loose flat clusters, with scant bitter flesh and thick- walled 2-celled subglobose nut- 

 let, striated lengthwise with many grooves. 



(The specific name is the Latin for alternate leaved.) 



