attractive small
trees on account of its flowers, habit, and foliage, but one of the most
useful for shady places or under tall trees. The species, a
red-flowering and also a weeping variety are obtainable in leading
nurseries. Collected plants can be made to succeed. It is a plant of
rather slow growth.

[Illustration: PLATE LXXIX.--Cornus florida.]

1. Leaf-buds.
2. Flower-buds.
3. Flowering branch.
4. Flower.
5. Fruiting branch.

=Cornus alternifolia, L. f.=

DOGWOOD. GREEN OSIER.

=Habitat and Range.=--Hillsides, open woods and copses, borders of
streams and swamps.

Nova Scotia and New Brunswick along the valley of the St. Lawrence
river to the western shores of Lake Superior.

Common throughout New England.

South to Georgia and Alabama; west to Minnesota.

=Habit.=--A shrub or small tree, 6-20 feet high, trunk diameter 3-6
inches; head usually widest near the top, flat; branches nearly
horizontal with lateral spray, the lively green, dense foliage lying in
broad planes.

=Bark.=--Trunk and larger branches greenish, warty, streaked with gray;
season's shoots bright yellowish-green or purplish, oblong-dotted.

=Winter Buds and Leaves.=--Buds small, acute. Leaves simple, alternate
or sometimes opposite, clustered at the ends of the branchlets, 2-4
inches long, dark green on the upper side, paler beneath, with minute
appressed pubescence on both sides, ovate to oval, almost entire; apex
long-pointed; base acutish or rounded; veins indented above, ribs
curving upward and parallel; petiole long, slender, and grooved.

=Inflorescence.=--June. From shoots of the season, in irregular open
cymes; calyx coherent with ovary, surmounting it by 4 minute teeth;
corolla white or pale yellow, with the 4 oblong petals at length
reflexed: stamens 4, exserted; style short, with capitate stigma.

=Fruit.=--October. Globular, blue or blue black, on slender, reddish
stems.

=Horticultural Value.=--Hardy throughout New England, adapting itself to
a great variety of situations, but preferring a soil that is constantly
moist. Nursery or good collected plants are easily transplanted. A
disease, similar in its effect to the pear blight, so often disfigures
it that it is not desirable for use in important plantations.

[Illustration: PLATE LXXX.--Cornus alternifolia.]

1. Winter buds.
2. Flowering branch.
3. Flower with one petal and two stamens removed, side view.
4. Flower, view