Canadian Naturalist & Geologist. This Magazine is published bi-monthly, and is conducted by the following Committee, appointed by the Natural History Society of Montreal : J. W. DAWSON, LL.D., F.G.S., Principal of McGill College. E. BILLINGS, Palaeontologist to the Geological Survey of Canada. W. H. HINGSTON, M.D., Corresponding Secretary, N. H. Society. EXCHANGES.--SPECIAL NOTICE. The Editors of the Canadian Naturalist and Geologist are instructed by the Natural History Society of Montreal, Canada East, to send this Magazine, in which the Society's transactions and proceedings are published, to the scientific Magazines of Europe and America, and to the scientific Societies publishing transactions, in the hope that it may be the means of extending a knowledge of Canadian Natural History. The Editors will send the Magazine regularly by post, or other most expeditious channel, without cost to Magazines and Societies, in the expectation that Editors and Societies will exchange their publications with the Canadian Naturalist. All exchanges will be accepted with pleasure and their original contents noted or reviewed. The Editors would prefer to receive the monthly parts of such Journals as are published weekly. The Editors have further to request that Exchanges be sent to them by "Canadian book-post," prepaid,addressed to the Editors, as in their experience it is found that postal conveyance is the only way by which regularity of receipt can be secured. If, however the cost of postage should be a hindrance to any Editors or Societies to exchanging their publications with the Canadian Naturalist, such Exchanges may be addressed to the publishers, Messrs. Dawson & Son, Montreal, C. E., care of Messrs. Sampson Low, Son & Co., London, England. ** All printed matter for Canada by post must be prepaid by stamps, otherwise it will not be transmitted. THE EDITORS ARTICLE I.-On the Cornus florida of the United States. By George S. Blackie, A. M., M. D., and Professor of Botany and Natural History, University of Nashville, Tennessee, U.S., Honorary Member of the Botanical Society of Canada. [Read before the Botanical Society by Professor Williamson, LL.D., Kingston, 11th January, 1861.] Common throughout all our forests, conspicuous in spring time by its festoons of large white blossoms, and equally so during the fall months from its clusters of scarlet berries, a handsome little tree usually about 15 to 30 feet high, is the Cornus florida L. of the United States. I have brought this plant to your notice. for no particular reason, but that it this morning attracted my attention, as I walked in the neighbourhood of my home, and I conceive that much service may be done to the existing state of the botanical knowledge of our country, should each member of the society take up, meeting after meeting, some individual plant, no matter how common, and state all that he knows of that plant, whether such information be gleaned from his own studies or from those of others. On my first visit to the United States, one of the first objects which attracted my attention on travelling down the Mississippi, from the snows of Canada to the balmy spring of Louisiana, was this plant, and its extreme beauty, conCAN. NAT. VOL. VI. 1 trasted with the gloominess of the scenery from which I had just emerged, made so strong an impression on me, that I have ever since regarded the plant with a peculiar interest. Cornus florida is probably the most generally distributed species of its genus in our country. In this genus, which is one of the family of Cornacea, there are about twenty species, of which America has, north of Mexico, eleven; two are peculiar to Mexico; three are found in Nepaul; two in Japan; two are found in both Europe and Asia, and one is found in the north of both hemispheres. They are all shrubs, with entire, deciduous leaves, covered with adpressed hairs, the calyx four toothed, minute, adhering to the ovary; the petals four, distinct, oblong, inserted with the calyx into an epigynous disk, drupes baccate, flowers in cymes. In this State (Tennessee) we have at least five species; C. paniculata, C. stricta, C. asperifolia, C. sericea, and the subject of my present paper. In addition to these, in the north there are the species C. Canadensis, C. circinnata, C. alba, C. alternifolia, and C. sanguinea. The property of the bark of all these is very bitter and tonic. Some of them have underground stems, which send up branches dying annually down, others again have true permanent stems, the wood of which is excessively hard, a fact which has given rise to the name, from the Latin Cornu, a horn, the wood being believed to be as hard and as durable as horn. Hence the ancient Romans constructed spear-shafts and other warlike instruments from it, and Virgil alluded to it as bona belli cornus. The wood of C. florida is not only remarkable for its hardness, but for its extremely fine texture. Cornus florida, the flowering dogwood, is the most beautiful and showy plant of its genus. It is a round-headed small tree, usually fifteen or twenty feet high, but often reaching a height of twenty-five or thirty feet, and its stem a diameter of eight or nine inches. The new shoots are of grayish green, covered with down, those of the previous year are purple with slight rings, afterwards, changing to gray and streaked with brown. The stem is rough, with short broken ridges, between which the bark is often divided into regular plates. The branches are numerous, spreading, and disposed with regularity, sometimes opposite, sometimes arising by fours. The leaves are three inches long, opposite, oval, entire, acuminated, and, at the base, abruptly tapering to a short channelled footstalk. Smooth on their upper surface, their low er is whitish, with hairs along the mid-ribs and veins, and a few scattered ones between, the upper surfaces having also numerous conspicuous ridges. The flowers are placed on the ends of the branches, supported by a club-shaped footstalk. They are extremely small, and aggregated together in numbers of twelve or more in a head, surrounded by a showy involucre, three or four inches in length, and which is supposed by the non-scientific to be the flower. The flowers themselves are of a greenish yellow colour, but the four large obcordate leaves of the involucre are white, and sometimes tinged with violet. The outer extremity of each is notched as if from injury and this notch is purple or rose coloured. The calyx is extremely small. The petals and stamens are each four in number. There is one pistil with a filiform style nearly as long as the corolla. The fruit is a group of oblong, oval, shining, bright scarlet berries, crowned with the remnant of the calyx. They appear placed in the fork of two brauches, which arises from the fact that while the flowers are terminal, yet ere the fruit is perfected, the two branchlets for the flowers of the succeeding year are developed and grow up on each side. These berries ripen here about July or August, and are eagerly devoured, despite their bitterness, by birds in the winter season. In Louisiana, the C. florida flowers in February, in our vicinity in April and May, and farther north in June and July. It is in bloom for a fortnight, during which time the Indian farmers say, Indian corn should be planted. The plant is of slow growth, and has a hard, heavy, solid wood, of a close texture, and susceptible of a high polish. It is often called Boxwood, and used as a substitute for it in the manufacture of handles of chisels, hammers, and such tools, for the cogs of wheels, teeth of harrows, spoons, &c. Soon after the fruit commences to ripen the leaves begin to change their colour, turning to a purple and then to a rich crimson or purple colour, and a bright russet beneath, forming one of the most beautiful objects of our forests during the fall months. It is figured in Botanical Magazine, t. 526. Chemical analysis shows that the bark of the root, stem, and branches, which are bitter, astringent, and aromatic, contain in different proportions, the same substances as are found in Cinchona, except that there is more gum, mucilage, gallic acid, and extractive matter, and less resin, quinine and tannin. The principle obtained from it is called Cornine, and its salts have all the properties of these of quinine, though not so strongly marked. The principle is also difficult to obtain in any quantity. The extract of Dog |