It is found from Maine to Florida and westward, and stands the winds from the sea well when it grows along the coast, apparently losing little of its vigor.
Flowering Cornel, Flowering Dogwood Cornus florida
A small tree or shrub, 12 to 40 feet high, with a dark, rough bark. The recent shoots are gray and covered with down. The leaf-scars are small and opposite each other on the stem. The flower buds are conspicuous.
The flowering cornel can be distinguished by its flower buds alone in winter, if by nothing else. They are small and round with long curving tips, and in shape they look something like the paper torpedoes children play with on the Fourth of July. This is the only native tree in our climate, besides the maple and ash, which has opposite leaf-scars.
The confusion existing in some minds between the flowering dogwood of the woods and the poison dogwood of the swamps casts an undeserved shadow over the name of the former. If the poison dogwood were always called poison sumac and the Cornus florida, flowering cornel, this unfortunate confusion would soon end.
The wood is strong, hard, and close-grained, and takes polish exceedingly well. It is used in turnery, for the handles of tools, and occasionally for engravers’ blocks. The bark is bitter and is used as an astringent and tonic, especially in the treatment of fevers. The Indians made a scarlet dye from the bark of the roots.
The generic name comes from the Latin cornus, a horn, and refers to the hardness of the wood, and the specific name, florida (abounding in blossoms), alludes to the remarkable white flowers of this cornel, which open in June.
The flowering dogwood is found from Eastern Massachusetts to Central Florida and westward, and grows under large trees in rich woods.
The Moracæ are a small family with but one native representative in the North, the red mulberry. The white mulberry from China has been so widely cultivated and naturalized in the United States, that it is seen more commonly than the native species.
