68 NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



ledons. The Cornels inhabit the temperate regions of Europe, Asia, 

 N. America, and Peru. More than twenty species ^ are distinguished. 

 The greater part are woody and have opposite, entire, or serrulate, 

 penninerved leaves. There is, however, in the United States a 

 Cornus alternifolia} The inflorescences are cymes. Sometimes the 

 flowers are white and pedicellate ; the cyme is more or less corymbi- 

 form : it is so in (7. sanguinea, alba, i^anicidata, &c., which have been 

 united in a section Thelijcrania,^ Sometimes the flowers are yellow 

 and the pedicels short ; the collected inflorescence resembles an 

 umbel, as in C, mas^ (fig. 47-51). In other cases the cyme is of 

 sessile flowers, composed of glomerules and surrounded by from four 

 to eight coloured bracts forming a petaloid involucre, as in G. suecica, 

 canadensis, herbaceous species,^ and in C. florida (fig. 46), an arbores- 

 cent species.^ But the fruits, although very close to each other (in a 

 false capitule), are nearly independant; w^hilst in C. fragifera, of 

 which the genus Benthamia ^ has been made, the flowers of the 

 glomerule, surrounded by an involucre, are united by their receptacular 

 portion, and still more the fruits, which form a compound drupe, in 

 the form of a large strawberry with areolate surface. 



Corohia ^ has nearly the flower of Cornus, ordinarily pentamerous,^ 

 with the same inferior and di- or tricarpelar ovary. A small scale, 

 often scarcely visible and laciniate above, lines the base of the petals. 

 The ovary is surmounted by a disk and a style with two or three 

 short and thick stigmatiferous branches. The two or three cells are 

 incomplete at the summit, w^here a placentary enlargement supports, 

 in each cell, a descending ovule, with micropyle interior and superior. 

 The fruit is a drupe of w^hich the putamen is 1, 2-celled.^° Two 



1 MiCHX. Fl. Bor.-Amer. i. 91.— Roxb. FL ''Sect. Ta/i^crania 'Esdl. loc. cit.h. — Macro- 



Ind. i. 432. — C. A. Mey. Ann. Sc. Nat. ser. 3, carjnum Spach, loc. at. 101. 



iv. 58. — CEder, Fl. Dan. t. 6. — Sow. F)/gl. Bot. * Sect, Arctocrnnia 'E^ni,. loc.cit. a. — Cormion 



t. 310.— Wall. PI. As. Bar. t. 214.— Torr. et Spach, loc. cit. 9. 



Gr. Fl. N.-Amer. \. 649.— Wight, III. 1. 122.— ^ Gen. Benthamidia Spach, loc. cit. 106. 



Benth. Fl. FLongh. 137. — Gren. et Godr. Fl. de 7 Lindl. Bot. Mag. t. 1579 ; Veg. Kingd. 



Fr. ii. 2.— Bot. Mag. t. 526, 880, 2675, 4641.— (1846) 782, fig. 518.— Spach, loc. cit. 108.— 



Walp. Bcp. ii. 435; v. 932; Ann. i. 359; ii. Enpl. Gen. n. 4575. — Sieb. et Zucc. Fl. Jap. i. 



725 ; V. 90. 37, t. 16. 



* L. p. Suppl. 125.— Lher. loc. cit. t. 6.— ^ a. Cunn. Ann. Nat. Eht. iii. 249.— Endi.. 



GriMP. Abb. Eolz. t. 43.— C. alterna Marsh.— Gen. n. 5751.— B. H. Gen. 949, n. 4.— H. Bn. 



DC. Prodr. n. 1. Payer Fam. Nat. 340. 



^ Endl. oc. cit. c. — MicrocarjAum Spach, loc. ^ Sometimes hexumerous. 



cit. 92, sect. 1. i* With complete or incomplete cells. 



