LII. CORNACEÆ.
Trees or shrubs, with terete branchlets, scaly buds, and alternate or opposite deciduous leaves, without stipules. Flowers perfect or polygamo-diœcious; calyx 4 or 5-toothed, petals 4 or 5; stamens inserted on the margin of the epigynous disk; anthers oblong; introrse, 2-celled, the cells opening longitudinally; ovary 1 or 2-celled; ovule solitary, suspended from the interior angle of the apex of the cell, anatropous; micropyle superior. Fruit drupaceous, 1 or 2-seeded. Seed oblong-ovoid; seed-coat membranaceous; embryo in copious fleshy albumen; cotyledons foliaceous; radicle terete, turned toward the hilum.
The widely distributed Cornel family with ten genera, more numerous in temperate than in tropical regions, has arborescent representatives of the genus Cornus in North America.