281. HAMAMELIS VIRGINIANA WITCH HAZEL. 27 



exceedingly small evenly distributed ducts and inconspicuous medul- 

 lary rays. It is of a mottled yellowish brown color with abundant 

 brownish white sap-wood. Specific Gravity, 0.6856 ; Percentage of 

 Ash, 0.37 ; Relative Approximate Fuel Value, 0.6831 ; Weight of a 

 Cubic Foot in Pounds, 42.73. 



USES. Very little use is made of the wood of the Witch-Hazel, 

 though possessed of properties that would suggest its usefulness in 

 turnery, as for small articles of wooden ware, etc. 



MEDICINAL PROPERTIES. The bark of the Witch-Hazel has long 

 been used by the Xorth American Indians as a sedative to allay 

 inflammations. An extract is now widely made from the bark and 

 used very extensively in domestic practice on account of the same 

 virtues as recognized by the Indians, and is particularly valuable in 

 allaying inflammations in all mucous surfaces. 



OBDEE CORNACE^E: DOGWOOD FAMILY. 



Leaves deciduous, simple, variously arranged and without stipules. Flowers 

 regular, in cymes, heads, or golitary; calyx adnate to the ovary, its limb 4-5- 

 toothed or none; petals 4-5 or none; disk epigenous; stamens as many as the 

 petals and inserted with them on the margin of the disk; anthers introrse, 

 2-celled with a solitary anatropous suspended ovule in each cell. Fruit a 1-2- 

 seeded drupe: seed oblong with foliaceous cotyledons and copious albumen. 



The Dogwood Family consists of trees and shrubs of about sixteen genera and 

 eighty-five species mainly of north temperate regions. Two genera have arbores- 

 cent representatives in North America. 



GENUS NYSSA, L. 



Leaves alternate, petiolate, conduplicate in the bud. Flowers small, greenish, 

 polygamo-dioecious, in capitate clusters (or the fertile ones sometimes solitary) 

 with slender peduncles, from the axils of the lower leaves or of caducous bracts, 

 the staminate flowers numerous: calyx minutely 5-lobed; petals 5, minute and 

 thick or none; stamens 5-15 in the staminate flowers, exserted and inserted with 

 the petals on the edge of the entire or lobed disk; pistillate flowers sessile at the 

 end of the peduncle, few together, bracted; stamens included; ovary 1-2-celled and 

 style elongated, slender, curved and stigmatic towards the apex on one side. Fruit 

 an oblong or ovoid drupe with thin tart juicy flesh and thick-walled horny com- 

 pressed ridged or winged stone; embryo straight. 



Trees of five species of which four are natives of eastern North America and 

 the remaining one of southeastern Asia. They produce very fine grained tough 

 wood, with contorted fibre and annual rings indistinctly indicated. The fruit 

 is very tart and is sometimes used in conserves. (Nyssa is the name of a water 

 nymph and applied to the genus because of its species growing in wet places. ) 



