DOGWOOD FAMILY (Cornaceae)
FLOWERING DOGWOOD
Leaves usually opposite; sepals usually 4, calyx tube joined to the ovary; petals usually 4, or absent; stamens 4, alternate with the petals; ovary inferior; fruit a drupe.
Flowering Dogwood (Cornus florida) grows from Massachusetts to Ontario, Texas, and Mexico, but few people realize that it grows very luxuriantly and is widespread in the woods of East Texas. The beauty of the dogwood is not in the flowers, as one might expect, but in the four broad white floral leaves (bracts) which surround the flower-cluster. These bracts are a creamy white but are often tinged with pink. The minute greenish-white flowers have four petals and bloom in March before the leaves appear. The oblong scarlet fruits, about half an inch long, ripen in the fall.
It is said that dogwood gets its name from the fact that the bark of an English dogwood was used to treat mangy dogs. Another source for the name is given in a recent magazine which shows a photograph of a section of wood from a dogwood tree. By means of the growth rings of the tree, the section depicted the head of a swimming dog. Among the useful substances obtained from the tree are quinine from all parts, scarlet dye from the bark, and wood for tools. Enough quinine is obtained by chewing the twigs to ward off malarial fever.
SMALL-FLOWERED DOGWOOD
Rough-Leaved Cornel. Small-Flowered Dogwood (Cornus asperifolia) is hardly recognized as a dogwood because it does not have showy floral bracts. The rough leaves become very lovely in the fall as the veins take on a reddish-purple color. It is a very common shrub in thickets along streams or in moist ground from Texas to Southern Ontario. The flowers bloom in Texas from April to June, and the white fruits mature in the fall. The fruits are about ¼ inch in diameter and contain 2 seeds with a stony coat which is covered by a thin pulp.
The dogwood family includes several other trees and shrubs which are common in Texas. Black gum (Nyssa sylvatica) has 2-3 blue oval fruits about half an inch long in a cluster. It is one of the first trees in East Texas whose foliage takes on an autumnal coloring. Lindheimer’s garrya (Garrya lindheimeri), an evergreen shrub with thick leathery leaves, is very abundant in the hills of Central and West Texas. It bears dense clusters of small blue berries less than ¼ inch in diameter.