Dogwood Family (Cornaceæ)
(A) Flowering Dogwood (Cornus florida) is a tall shrub or tree, ranging in height from 7 to 40 feet. The large, handsome flowers, 2 to 4 inches across, are in full bloom before or just as the leaves commence to appear.
The four large notched segments are not petals, but form the involucre and the real flowers are clustered at the centre; they have four tiny greenish-white petals and numerous little stamens. This Dogwood is common in dry woods from Me. to Minn. and south to the Gulf.
(B) Bunchberry; Dwarf Cornel (Cornus canadensis) is really a dwarf as compared to the preceding, for it grows only from 4 to 8 inches high.
The stem is leafless except at the top, at which point four to six leaves radiate.
What appears like a single large blossom seated almost within the whorl of leaves is in reality a cluster of tiny, green-petalled, four-parted flowers surrounded by four large greenish-white bracts. It ranges from Labrador to Alaska south to N. J., Ind., and Minn.