CORN ACE^- DOGWOOD FAMILY 



DOGWOOD. CORNEL 



Cornus. 



Cornus, horn, from cornu, referring to the toughness of the 

 wood. 



The Cornels with showy floral leaves are confined to the New World, the 

 group being represented by the two flowering Dogwood trees, one in the 

 east and the other in the west ; also by the pretty little herbaceous Bunch- 

 berry, a familiar flower of our northern woods, and by another species re- 

 sembling the last, a Bunch-berry native to Alaska and the far northern parts 

 of the continent. These are all that have come down to us from a very pe- 

 culiar group of plants, which in earlier times were more widely scattered 

 over the earth's surface than they are now. For the ancestors of our Flow- 

 ering Dogwood occurred in Europe, where, however, their descendants have 

 been unable to obtain a foothold. 



Garden and Forest. 



The Dogwood makes a very attractive family group 

 which consists of herbs, shrubs and trees. The trees 

 are small and sometimes play at being shrubs ; the 

 shrubs now and then try to be trees ; and the herbs 

 are woody at base and apparently hope some day to 

 be shrubs. 



The highest and the lowest in the family produce 

 flowers and fruit that are very similar. Cornus florida, 

 the tree, and Cornus canadcnsis, the herb, wrap around 

 their clusters of small flowers the superb white involu- 



241 



