FLOWERING DOGWOOD 
Cornus florida Linnaeus 
Dogwood grows abundantly in the favored regions which it 
inhabits. When the tree is in bloom in early spring, the profuse 
blossoms appear like a cloud of great snowflakes falling through the 
interlaced branches. The large flower buds are well developed before 
the leaves fall in autumn. When warmer days have come the four 
small bracts, which protect the buds, expand into the white petal- 
like organs which surround the yellow-green florets clustered in 
the center. The dogwood tree grows toa maximum height of twenty 
feet with a trunk sometimes eighteen inches in diameter. Its bark is 
gtay and cracked into squares, and the wood is close-gtained and 
heavy. Its firm and even texture, and its quality of drying without 
cracking, makes it a favorite wood for wedges in lumber camps and 
for spindles and bobbins in cotton mills. Dogwood is the State flower 
of Virginia, and no mote beautiful and suitable plant could have been 
chosen. Occasionally the bracts are pink. Both colot-ty pes ate exten- 
sively cultivated, thriving best in a moderately acid soil. 
Flowering dogwood is found ftom Florida and Texas northward 
to southern Maine, Ontario, and Minnesota, and related species occut 
in the Pacific Coast States, and in Japan, Korea, and China. 
The sketch was made in Washington, District of Columbia. 
PLATE 321 
