52 
LARGE-FLOWERED DOGWOOD. 
Cornus nuttallii, leaves of the involucrum 4-6, obovate, acute or acumi- 
nate, narrowed at the base ; drupes oval ,* leaves oval, scarcely acumi- 
nate. Torrey and Gray, Flor. N. Amer. 1, p. 652. Audubon, Birds 
of America, plate 367. 
Cornus Florida , Hooker, Flor. Bor, Amer. vol. 1, p. 277, (partly.) 
On arriving, towards the close of September in 1834, at 
Fort Vancouver, I hastened again on shore to examine the 
productions of the forests of the far West, and nothing so 
much surprised me as the magnificent appearance of some 
fine trees of this beautiful Cornus. Some of them growing 
in the rich lands near the fort were not less than 50 to 70 
feet in height, with large, oval, acute, lucid green leaves, 
which, taken with the smooth trunk and unusually large 
clusters of crimson berries, led me, at first glance, to 
believe that I beheld some new magnolia, until the flower 
buds, already advanced for the coming season, proved our 
plant to be a Cornus, allied, in fact, to the Florida , but with 
flowers or coloured involucres nearly 6 inches in diameter ! 
These appeared in all their splendour, in May of the follow- 
ing year, of a pure white with a faint tinge of blush ; the 
divisions, also, of this brilliant pseudo-flower are usually 5 
or 6 in number, of an obovate outline, with the points often 
acute. The leaves are about 4 inches long and 2J wide, 
with a considerable quantity of pubescence beneath. The 
cluster of bright red berries is scarcely inferior to that 
of the cone of the Magnolia umbrella , and each of them is 
strongly terminated by the 4 persistent teeth of the calyx 
and the style. The petals are oblong-ovate, shorter con- 
siderably than the stamens. 
The wood, like that of all the species, is very hard, 
close-grained, of slow growth, and would be useful for all 
the purposes for which the wood of the C. Florida is em- 
ployed. The extract of the bark, boiled down to a solid 
consistence, containing in a very concentrated state the 
vegetable principle cornine, we found of singular service in 
