CORNACEvE. 



187 



Flowers white, in compact compound corymbose cymes, without 

 an involucre. 



In woods, thickets, and hedges. Common in the South and 

 East of England, more rare in the North and West. Not wild in 

 Scotland. 



England, [Scotland,] Ireland. Shrub. Summer. 



A shrub 4 to 8 feet high or more, much branched, with grey 

 bark; the young shoots smooth, bright-red in autumn and winter. 

 Leaves 1^ to 3 inches long, with very short distant adpressed hairs 

 above, attached by the middle and longer curled ones beneath. 

 The growing shoots silky, pubescent ; cymes compact, much branched, 

 flattish above, many-flowered, 1 to 2 'inches across. Flowers f inch 

 across, cream-white. Calyx-segments very minnte, triangular. 

 Petals strapshaped, slightly recurved at the tips. Stamens as long 

 as the petals, sub-erect. Style about as long as the stamens, 

 enlarged at the apex. Drupe about the size of buck-shot, black, 

 clothed with minute hairs attached by the middle. Leaves dull- 

 green, turning purple in autumn. 



Common Dogwood. 



French, Cornouiller Sanguin. German, Eothe Cornelle, or Hartrkgel. 



This shrub has a variety of names given to it. It is called Female Cornel, Dog- 

 berry-tree, Hound-tree, and Prickwood. The latter name seems to have originated in 

 the use of the wood for making skewers in former times. It is one of the commonest 

 shrubs in old plantations, and may be easily distinguished from other kinds of Cornua 

 by the abundance of its dark-purple fruit, and the intensely dark-red of its leaves before 

 they drop off in the autumn. It is from this latter circumstance that the specific name 

 sanguinea has been given to it, although the red shoots of G. alba would more fully 

 justify the name. The British Dogwood, although possessed of some of the properties 

 of its foreign representatives, has not been so extensively applied to useful purposes ; it 

 is, however, valuable to some extent on account of the hardness of its wood, which is 

 made into cog-wheels, skewers, &c, at the present time ; and when bows and arrows 

 were the national arms of defence, arrows were very generally made from this wood. 

 Ramrods of fowling-pieces are often made of Dogwood, especially in France, and in 

 Germany and Russia it is bored and used as tubes to pipes. It makes excellent fuel, 

 and the very best charcoal for gunpowder. The fruit contains a large quantity of excel- 

 lent oil adapted for most domestic purposes, especially for burning in lamps : the quan- 

 tity yielded amounts to about 34 per cent. In France, much of this oil is expressed 

 from the berries by a similar process to that by which olive-oil is extracted : it is 

 largely consumed there in soap-making. It will grow in any soil, but prefers that of a 

 calcareous nature ; and, as the fruit is produced in abundance, it lias been suggested that 

 the shrub might be grown here with advantage, for the purpose of procuring the oil. 

 The Cornel-tree known to the ancients, and forming the celebrated 



" Cornel spear 

 Ulysses waved to rouse the savage boar," 



was probably a much larger species — the Male Dogwood, or Cornus mas. This tree ia 



