WILD FLOWERS OF NF.W YORK 193 



Dog-wood Family 



C o r n a c e a e 

 Low or Dwarf Cornel; Bunchberry 



Com lis ((UKidciisis Linnaeus 



Plate 130 



Flowering and leaf -bearing stems 3 to 9 inches high, from slender, 

 underground, horizontal, perennial rootstocks which are somewhat woody. 

 Leaves five to nine in number, whorled at the summit of the upright stem, 

 sessile, ovate or obovate, smooth or minutely hairy, pointed at each end, 

 entire, i to 4 inches long; the stem sometimes with one or two pairs of smaller, 

 opposite leaves below the whorl. Flowers greenish or yellowish, very small, 

 several in a dense, globose cluster on a stalk one-half to 2 inches long which 

 terminates the stem; the flowers proper surrounded by four to six, usually 

 four, white, petallike, ovate, involucral bracts, one-third to three-fourths 

 of an inch long, so that the entire inflorescence appears at first glance to 

 be a single flower. Fruit a cluster of globose, bright-red berries. 



In open woods, usually where the soil is moist, sometimes in thickets 

 and on recently cleared land, Newfoundland to Alaska south to New Jersey, 

 West Virginia, Indiana, Colorado and California and in eastern Asia. 

 Flowering in May or June or later in the far north. 



This dwarf member of a group made up chiefl}- of large shrubs and 

 trees has been placed in a separate genus by some recent authors, the 

 chief objection to which is its name, Chamaepericlymenum. This generic 

 name has priority over the more appropriate generic name, Cornelia, given 

 it by Doctor Rydberg. 



The Flowering Dogwood (C y n o x y 1 o n floridum (Linnaeus) 

 Rafinesque) is a small tree or large shrub. The involucral bracts are white 

 or pinkish, obovate and notched at the apex, i to 2h inches long. Common 

 in the eastern and southern portions of the State. 



