206 DOGWOOD FAMILY. 



8. NYSSA. Flowers polygamous or dioecious, greenish ; the sterile ones numerous, the 

 fertile 2-8 in a bracted cluster, or rarely solitary. Calyx of 5 or more lobes or teeth. 

 Petals small and narrow, or minute, or none. Style slender or awl-shaped, bearing a 

 stigma down the whole length of one side, revolute. Ovary and stone of the drupe 

 1-celled and 1-seeded. Trees with deciduous alternate leaves, either entire, angled, or 

 few-toothed. 



1. CORNUS, CORNEL or DOGWOOD. (Latin : cornu, horn, from 

 the hardness of the wood.) Flowers late spring and early summer. 



Flowers greenish, in a head or close cluster surrounded by a showy, 

 corolla-like, (white or rarely pinkish) ^-leaved involucre; fruit bright 

 red. 



C. Canade"nsis, Linn. DWARF CORNEL, BUNCHBERRY. Damp woods 

 N. ; a low herb, the stems from creeping, subterranean shoots which are 

 slightly woody, bearing 4-6 ovate or oval leaves at the summit below the 

 stalked flower head ; petal-like leaves of the involucre ovate ; fruits 

 globular, in a cluster, edible. 



C. fl6rida, Linn. FLOWERING DOGWOOD. Rocky woods ; also planted 

 for ornament. Tree 12-30 high, with ovate pointed leaves, petal-like 

 leaves of the whitish (or in a cult, variety red) involucre (li ; long) ob- 

 cordate or obovate and notched, and oval fruits in a head. 



* * Flowers yellow (earlier than the leaves), in a small umbel, sur- 

 rounded by a small and dull-colored involucre of 4 scales; fruit 

 bright red. 



C. Mas, Linn. CORNELIAN CHERRY. A tall shrub or low tree, with 

 oval, pointed (often variegated) leaves and handsome oblong fruit, the 

 pulp pleasantly acid ; planted from Eu. 



* * Flowers white in open and flat cymes, without involucre; fruit 

 small, globular, inedible, blue, white, or black. 



->- Leaves alternate. 



C. altemif61ia, Linn.f. Shrub or tree, 8-25 high, with streaked 

 branches, ovate or oblong taper-pointed leaves acute at base and only 

 minutely pubescent beneath, crowded at the end of the branches ; cymes 

 large and flat ; fruit bright blue on reddish stalks. Hillsides and banks 

 of streams. 



Branches of the previous year red or purple, at least in spring (rarely 

 yellow in C. stolonifera). 



= Leaves with lower surface more or less soft-pubescent (rarely smoothish 

 in C. Baileyi). 



C. serlcea, Linn. KINNIKINIC (the dry bark smoked by the Indians 

 W.). In wet places N. and S.; has dull-red branches, the shoots, cymes, 

 and lower face of the narrow-ovate or oblong pointed leaves silky -downy ; 

 fruit bluish ; stone irregular and furrowed, generally broader than long. 



C. Baileyi, Coult. & Evans. An erect shrub, with purple-red branches ; 

 leaves lanceolate to ovate, acute ; flowers white, in small cymes, often 

 continuing all summer, and followed by pearly-white berries ; stone much 

 compressed and prominently furrowed on the edge, broader than long. 

 Along the Great Lakes and far W. 



= = Leaves smooth (although often whitish) below, or the pubescence, if 

 any, oppressed. 



C, stolonifera, Michx. WILD RED OSIER. Shrub 3-6 high, in wet 

 places N., spreading by prostrate or subterranean running shoots, smooth, 



