Dogwood

a family of flowering shrubs or trees. The common dogwood of Europe appears to be of value--its wood for charcoal, its berries for oil. There are several American dogwoods; they are as often called cornel. Two are quite showy in flower. The inconspicuous flowers are in a close head surrounded by a whorl of showy white leaves that one would naturally suppose to be the petals of the flower itself. One of these showy cornels is a dwarf about six inches high which in June carpets the low grounds of the Northern woods with white. A cluster of red berries follows later. The other showy cornel is the flowering dogwood of upland forests from Ontario to Texas. The leaves that surround the flower cluster are white, broad, heartshaped at the apex and open up three or four inches across. They are followed by handsome clusters of red berries that add brilliancy to the foliage of autumn. The other cornels are hard to tell apart. They bear flat clusters of white flowers. The purple bark of the Kinni-kinic was much used by the Northern Indians as a substitute for smoking tobacco. The bright red-purple shrubs of another kind give it the name of red osier dogwood.