THE CORNEL 115 
means female ; but, as is familiarly brought to our 
recollection by the old names“ Male Fern” and“ Lady 
Fern,” the ancient application of these sex terms to 
plants had a purely figurative significance, generally 
meaning only robust and less robust in growth. 
Though the wood of the Dogwood is not nearly so 
hard as that of the Cornelian Cherry, we should 
hardly term it spongy or useless; so that commen- 
tators have suggested that Pliny is referring to a 
very different plant, one of the Honeysuckles. Hart- 
reegell, meaning hard rail, is also obviously only 
applicable to a hard wood; but there can be little 
doubt that Matthiolus was right in interpreting Virga 
sanguinea or Bloody Twig, in another passage in 
Pliny, as referring to the shoot or autumn leaves of 
our common Dogwood.: This interesting old com- 
mentator upon Dioscorides not only records that 
the people of Trent extracted an oil by boiling 
the berries of the Dogwood,and used it in their 
lamps; but he adds that if persons bitten by mad 
dogs hold twigs of this tree in their hands until they 
become warm they are driven mad. To this startling 
statement Parkinson adds that “If one that is cured of 
the biting of a madde dogge, shall within one twelve 
moneth after touch the Cornus femina, or Dogge 
berry tree, or any part thereof, the disease will returne 
againe.” 
No doubt before these “facts” were imagined 
the bush had acquired the name of Dogwood, and 
some explanation of that name was felt to be wanted. 
In ®lfric’s tenth-century vocabulary cornus is 
merely translated “corn-treow,” and in one of the 
