4. [Cornus alternifolia] L. Dogwood.
Leaves mostly alternate, clustered at the end of the branches, rarely opposite, oval or ovate, gradually contracted at apex into a long slender point, cuneate or occasionally somewhat rounded at base, obscurely crenulate-toothed on the slightly thickened and incurved margins, coated when they unfold on the lower surface with dense silvery white tomentum, and faintly tinged with red and pilose above, and at maturity thin, bright yellow-green, glabrous or sparsely pubescent on the upper surface, pale or sometimes nearly white and covered with appressed hairs on the lower surface, 3′—5′ long and 2½′—3½′ wide, with a broad orange-colored midrib slightly impressed above, and about 6 pairs of primary veins parallel with their sides; in the autumn turning yellow or yellow and scarlet; petioles slender, pubescent, grooved, 1½′—2′ in length, with an enlarged clasping base. Flowers cream color, opening from the beginning of May to the end of June on slender jointed pedicels ⅛′—¼′ long, in terminal flat puberulous many-flowered cymes 1½′—2½′ wide, mostly on lateral branchlets; calyx cup-shaped, obscurely toothed; corolla-lobes narrow, oblong, rounded at apex, ⅛′ long, reflexed after anthesis; style enlarged into a prominent stigma. Fruit in loose spreading red-stemmed clusters, ripening in October, subglobose, dark blue-black, or rarely yellow (f. ochrocarpa Rehd.), ⅓′ in diameter, tipped with the remnants of the style rising from the bottom of a small depression, with thin and bitter flesh; and an obovoid nutlet, pointed at base, gradually longitudinally many-grooved, thick-walled, and 1 or 2-seeded; seeds lunate, ¼′ long, with a thin membranaceous pale coat.
A flat-topped tree, rarely 25°—30° high, with a short trunk 6′—8′ in diameter, long slender alternate diverging horizontal branches, and numerous short upright slender branchlets pale orange-green or reddish brown when they first appear, mostly light green or sometimes brown tinged with green during their first winter, later turning darker green and marked by pale lunate leaf-scars and small scattered pale lenticels; often a shrub, with numerous stems. Bark of the trunk about ⅛′ thick, dark reddish brown, and smooth or divided by shallow longitudinal fissures into narrow ridges irregularly broken transversely. Wood heavy, hard, close-grained, brown tinged with red, with thick lighter colored sapwood of 20—30 layers of annual growth.
Distribution. Rich woodlands, the margins of the forest, and the borders of streams and swamps, in moist well-drained soil, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, westward along the valley of the St. Lawrence River to the northern shores of Lake Superior and to Minnesota, and southward through the northern states and along the Appalachian Mountains to North Carolina, up to altitudes of 3500°—4000°; in northern Alabama, southwestern Georgia, and western Florida (River Junction, Gadsden County, T. G. Harbison).
Occasionally cultivated as an ornamental plant in the eastern states.
Section 2. Gamopetalæ. Corolla of united petals (divided in Elliottia in Ericaceæ 0 in some species of Fraxinus in Oleaceæ).
A. Ovary superior (inferior in Vaccinium in Ericaceæ, partly inferior in Symplocaceæ, partly superior in Styraceæ).
LIII. ERICACEÆ.
Trees or shrubs, with scaly buds, and alternate simple leaves, without stipules. Flowers perfect, regular; calyx 4—5-lobed; corolla hypogynous, 5-lobed (of 4 petals in Elliottia), the lobes imbricated in the bud; stamens hypogynous, mostly free from the corolla, as many, or twice as many as its lobes; anthers introrse, 2-celled, opening by terminal pores, often appendaged; ovary 4—10-celled (inferior in Vaccinium); styles terminal, simple, stigma terminal; ovules numerous, anatropous or amphitropous; raphe ventral; micropyle superior. Fruit capsular, drupaceous, or baccate. Seeds with fleshy or horny albumen, embryo small; cotyledons small and short.