JOURNAL 
OF 
The New York Botanical Garden 
VoL. XIV July, 1913 No. 163 
WILD PLANTS NEEDING PROTECTION* 
9. ‘FLOWERING Docwoop” (Cynoxylon floridum) 
WITH PLaTE CXX 
One of the new enemies of the dogwood is the automobile. 
It is not unusual in the vicinity of New York to see great branches 
torn off, with aJl the flowers drooping, being borne into the city, 
by people in automobiles. Such ruthless and wanton destructio 
of this most decorative tree of our woodlands and hillsides is 
ae and should be punished as a misdemeanor, for it 
is undoubtedly true, in most cases, that the depredators do not 
own the trees ae they destroy, and have taken the branches from 
either some public park or privat 
The dogwood attains a height of sheik 10-20 feet with a 
maximum trunk of 40 feet usually with low and broad, spreading 
branches. At the summit of each twig there is a cluster of small 
yellowish green flowers about twenty to thirty in number, sur 
rounded by four large white bracts, which sometimes 
attain 2-3 inches in length and 1-2 inches in breadth. The 
are formed by the expansion ae the involucre which surrounds the 
flowers in the bud. They are usually notched at the apex, 
often tinted with red and occasionally quite pink. e flowers 
are small, crowded together, with four recurved greenish yellow 
Sire attached in the mouth of the tubular 4-lobed calyx; the 
stamens are four, attached to and falling with the corolla and 
*Tllustrated by the aid of the Stokes Fund for the Preservation of Native 
Plants. 
133 
