136 PBACTICAL FOKESTET. 



Fruit in an ovoid imbricated cone. A small tree torn Tampa, 

 Florida, southward to Brazil, in sandy soils. 



COEDIA, Linn, Plumier. 



Sub-tropical or tropical trees, and shrubs of the East and 

 West Indies, and other warm climates. Highly valued as orna- 

 mental trees. The greater portion of the species are Americau. 

 Two of the four found in the United States reach a bight of 

 twenty or more feet. 



Cordla Borissieri, A. DC. Leaves oval, or oblong-ovate, soft, 

 woolly, but becoming smooth or rugose when old. Flowers 

 white, with yeUow center ; five-lobed, and rather downy on 

 outside. Two to four one-ceEed hard seeds, enclosed iu a 

 small, pulpy fruit. A small tree, twenty feet high, along the 

 southern border of Texas and New Mexico, and westward. 



C. Sefccstena, Linn. — Eough-leaved Cordia. — Leaves large, 

 four to eight inches long, ovate-oblong, rough to the touch. 

 Flowers are deep yellow-orange, in large, terminal corymbose 

 racemes. Fruit is a round, or pear-shaped drupe, containing a 

 deeply furrowed nut. A handsome, ornamental tree in South 

 Florida, and the West Indies. The botanist, Catesby, states 

 that the wood of this species is of a dark brown, approaching to 

 black ; very heavy, and containing a gum, in smell and appear- 

 ance resembling that of Aloes. In the Bahama Islands L<3 called 

 Lignum Aloes (NuttaU's North American Sylva, Vol. n. p. 146.) 



coKNus, Tour. — Dogwood, 



A large genus, principally shrubs and small trees, a few per- 

 ennial herbs, mostly of the northern hemisphere ; one in South 

 America. Fifteen of the twenty-five species, known to botan- 

 ists, are indigenous to the United States, but only two reach 

 the hight of twenty feet or more. Flowers perfect, small, in 

 compact clusters or heads, usually quite inconspicuous, but in 

 some species they are enclosed at first in a coroUa-like involucre, 

 which, upon expanding, is very showy. This flower-like envelop 

 is usually referred to as the flower of the common Dogwood of 

 this country. 



Cornns florida, Linn. — Flowering Dogwood. — Leaves ovate, 

 pointed, smooth on both sides. Flowers small, greenish-white, 

 enclosed in a large four-leaved, white involucre, sometimes 

 tinged with red. Fruit an oval, bright red drupe, with an 

 agreeable tasted pulp, much sought by several species of birds. 



