THE DOGWOOD FAMILY 



CORNACE^ Link 



ilORNACE/E include about 20 genera with some 90 species of trees, 

 shrubs, or herb-like shrubs, principally natives of the northern hem- 

 isphere. They are of no special economic value; some are very 

 ornamental, not only for the profusion of flowers, brilliant fruit, and 

 autumnal foliage, but also for their beauty of form and handsome twig coloration 

 during the winter. 



The Cornacece have alternate, opposite or whorled, mostly firm and leathery 

 leaves, which are usually entire and without stipules. The flowers are perfect or 

 dioecious, disposed in cymes or heads, with or without a general involucre. The 

 calyx- tube is 4- or 5-toothed, rarely entire; the corolla consists of 4 or 5 petals, 

 valvate or imbricated, inserted at the base of a disk and spreading; stamens usually 

 of the same number as the petals or more, and inserted with them, their filaments 

 round or flattened; anthers attached at the base or back; ovary i- to 4-celled, 

 inferior; styles united, short or long; stigma entire, lobed or cleft; ovxiles solitary 

 in each cavity or rarely 2. Fruit mostly a drupe with an acrid flesh; stone soli- 

 tary, rarely 2, containing i to 4 cells; seeds oblong, the embryo nearly as large as 

 the endosperm; cotyledons leafy. 

 Our arborescent genera are: 



Flowers dioecious or polygamo-dioecious; stigmas lateral. 

 Stigmas 2; ovules 2 in each cavity; staminate flowers in catkin-like spikes. 

 Stigma i; ovules i in each cavity; staminate flowers in heads. 

 Flowers perfect; stigmas terminal. 

 Flowers in open cymes, not subtended by a large involucre; fruit surmounted 



by the style. 

 Flowers in heads subtended by a large involucre; fruit surmounted by the 

 calyx. 



I. SILK TASSEL TREE 



GENUS GARRYA DOUGLAS 

 Species Garrya elliptica Douglas 



I HIS small evergreen tree or shrub grows in rich sandy soils by streams 



in the Coast ranges from Monterey, California, northward to the 



Columbia River, where it attains its greatest dimensions, a height of 



6 meters and a trunk diameter of 5 dm. 



The bark is thin, nearly smooth, greenish. The twigs are stout, somewhat 



735 



1. Garrya. 



2. Nyssa. 



3. Cornus. 



4. Cynoxylon. 



