CORNACE^. 75 



Order of Cornea', wliicli Lindley ^ in 1836 named Cornacece. Under 

 this named Bentham and Hooker ^ have united in one family the 

 Cornece proper, the Alangiece, the GarnjecB, and the Nysece, the whole 

 comprising twelve genera. We retain, for reasons stated, only the 

 genera Cornus, Gorohia, Aiicuha, ? Kalyphora, Griselinia, TovricelUa, 

 Garrya ; but we add Hehvingia, referred by Bentham and Hooker to 

 the family Araliacece, close beside Meryta, 



These eight genera belong to very different countries. The Garrijas 

 are all American, growing in the south-west of N. America, except 

 one species in the Antilles. To America belong some species of 

 Cornus, and nearly all the genus Griselinia, The other Cornacece are 

 of the old world ; Kaliphora from Madagascar ; Auciiha from the 

 temperate regions of Asia, as also Helwingia and TorricelUa ; Corokia 

 and two Griselimas from New Zealand. The Cornels of the old 

 continent are Asiatic and European. There are two French species, 

 Cornus mas and sanguinea. The latter grows as far as Norway in one 

 direction, and in the other in southern Russia, Altai and around lake 

 Baikal. C. suecica, a small herbaceous species, extends to Lapland, 

 Greenland, Kamtchatka, and in America to Terra Nova, where grows 

 also a very similar herbaceous species, 0. canadensis. The whole 

 family comprises only some fifty species, of which about half belong 

 to the genus Cornus. 



All the Cornacece known have common characters very general if 

 not constant : the woody consistance of the stems, ^ the absence of 

 stipules, the independence of the petals, the isostemony of the 

 androecium; the concave form of the receptacle, and consequent 

 epigynous insertion of the corolla and stamens ; the descending 

 direction of the ovule, with the position of the micropyle immediately 

 below the point of attachment, and the dorsal position of the raphe, 

 the jfleshy consistence of the pericarp and the presence of albumen in 

 the seeds. Some of these characters only distinguish them from the 

 neighbouring families, the polypetaly from the Caprifoliacece ; the 

 direction of the micropyle from the Araliece, in which it is turned 

 upwards and outwards,* that is on the side opposite that of the hilum. 



1 Introd. ed. 2, 49 ; Vecj. Kingd. (1846) 782, ^ That is why Mastixia, the descending ovule 

 Ord. 298. of which has the micropyle exterior and supe- 



2 Ge/i. (1867) 947, Ord. 82. rior, can only he placed near Arthrophyllum, in 



3 Except a couple of herbaceous species of which the direction is the same, and not among 

 Cornus. the Con<aa(e. It is vfhy aluo JIelui>t//ia, ranged 



