412 WOODY PLANTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 
invested with a silky down, especially above, but sometimes 
almost smooth. 
The leaves are opposite, two or three inches long, sometimes 
more, but less than half as broad, ovate-lanceolate, oblong or 
elliptic, rounded or tapering at base, ending in a rather long 
point. They are dark green, entire, nearly smooth or with a 
few hairs above, paler, with ferruginous hairs, particularly on 
the mid-rib and veins beneath. The footstalk is half an inch 
long, round, plain and purple above, hairy. The shoots from 
the root are green and downy, and bear larger and rather 
smoother leaves. The upper leaves, particularly those next the 
flower-stalk, are very broad, those below and on the other 
branches, longer and narrower. 
The cymes are terminal, numerous, on round footstalks, an 
inch or more in length, silky or downy, flat or hollow above, 
not large. Calyx oblong, downy, with long, lanceolate, acute, 
greenish segments; petals tapering, bluntly pointed, yellow 
without, white within. The stamens are as long as the petals 
or longer, bearing large anthers. The style, which procceds 
from a purple ovary, is large and ends in a head. 
But little of the fruit is matured. The berries, particularly 
the abortive ones, retain the four lanceolate segments of the 
calyx and the capitate style. 
The bark of the silky cornel possesses, according to Dr. Bar- 
ton, the same properties as that of the Fiowermg Dogwood, 
and has often been successfully used as a substitute for Peruvian 
bark. 
This plant is very abundant in the neighborhood of Boston 
and in the middle of the State. It occurs from Canada to 
Georgia and Louisiana. It flowers in May and June, and ripens 
its fruit in September. 
