FLOWERING DOGWOOD 



Comus 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 to a maximum height of twenty 

 feet with a trunk sometimes eighteen inches in diameter. Its bark is 

 gray and cracked into squares, and the wood is close-grained 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 more beautiful and suitable plant could have been 

 chosen. Occasionally the bracts are pink. Both color-types are exten- 

 sively cultivated, thriving best in a moderately acid soil. 



Flowering dogwood is found from Florida and Texas northward 

 to southern Maine, Ontario, and Minnesota, and related species occur 

 in the Pacific Coast States, and in Japan, Korea, and China. 



The sketch was made in Washington, District of Columbia. 



PLATE 32.I 



