Dogwood

“ In the autumn the same surprise awaits us, when under a towering tree with yellow or russet foliage, the dogwood leaps up like a scarlet flame, against its dark background, holding straight out its platformed branches of red leaves, tipped with berries, like rubies, set on the upturned twigs.
Often the trees are stripped by birds before the berries are ripe. It is in woods where the trees are numerous that we shall find the fruit reaching its perfection of ripeness and colour. ”

“ Is it not sad to know that the brave, bold dogwood, holding out its spring flag of truce [Pg 200] from arduous weather, and its autumn store of sustenance for our feathered friends, is in danger of extinction from the forest because its hardy, smooth, even-grained white wood has been found to be especially available in the "arts"? I feel like begging for the life of every dogwood, as too beautiful to be destroyed for any mere utility. ”

“ A dogwood tree in full bloom against a hillside in spring is a most conspicuous object, and is justly admired by all who have appreciation of beauty. The flowers fall as leaves appear, and for some months the tree occupies its little space in the forest unobserved; but in the autumn it bursts again into glory, and while not quite as conspicuous an object as when in bloom, it is no less worthy of admiration. ”

“ Everywhere are remnants of Box hedges. One unkempt dooryard of an old Dutch farm-house was glorified with a broad double row of yellow Lily at least sixty feet in length. Everywhere is Wistaria, on porches, fences, houses, and trees; the abundant Dogwood trees are often overgrown with Wistaria. The most exquisite sight of the floral year was the largest Dogwood tree I have ever seen, radiant with starry white bloom, and hung to the tip of every white-flowered branch with the drooping amethystine racemes of Wistaria of equal luxuriance. ”

“ Magnolia blossoms are sold in our city streets to remind city dwellers of spring. "Every flower its own bow-kwet," is the call of the vender. Bunches of Locust blossoms follow, awkwardly tied together. Though the Magnolia is earlier, I do not find it much more splendid as a flowering tree for the garden than our northern Dogwood; and the Dogwood when in bloom seems just as tropical. It is then the glory of the landscape; and its radiant starry blossoms turn into ideal beauty even our sombre cemeteries. ”

“ The elder has made a great start; the yellowish-green shoots from the stems and from the roots are already more than six inches long. The panicled dogwood and the red-osier dogwood (no, not the flowering dogwood) as yet show no signs of foliage, but the fine white lines in the bark of the bladdernut, which have been so attractive all winter, are now enhanced by the soft myrtle green of the tender young leaves. The shrubby red cedar is twice as fresh and green as it was a month ago, as it hangs down the face of the splintered rock where the farmer boys have set a trap to catch the mother mink. ”

“ So Judith got out the jars and filled them with great bunches of the dogwood, which gives such a Japanesque effect of blossom on bare branch, and with the apple blossoms, the wild iris mingling its dainty mauve equally well with each. ”

“ In the spring the dogwood, cherry-trees, and many others blossom, and, together with the jessamines, perfume the air; while the luxuriant vines climb over the loftiest trees, and bushes or shrubs of humbler growth fill up the thicket. ”

“ Early in May we see in the woods a tree that is very beautiful. It is covered with what seem to be white [Pg 245] blossoms. This tree is the flowering dogwood, and it tricks us somewhat in the same way as does the clover; for in this picture (Fig. 261) you see what nearly every one believes to be a single flower of the dogwood. And if some time ago you had been asked to give the building plan of the dogwood flower, you would have been pretty sure to say that the four large white leaves formed its corolla.
Fig. 261 ”

“ Against this wealth of green the dogwood spreads its snow-white masses of bloom. In sunlit spaces of greenness the scarlet flash of a tanager, the rich blue coloring of the indigo bird, newly arrived from its winter quarters in South America, and the glimpse of a rose-breasted grosbeak among the high tree tops are strangely suggestive of a tropical forest. ”

“ Barberry bushes love the rough pasture and even these rougher rocks, yet they bring to them only grace and elegance and refinement, and receive no hint of uncouthness or barbarity from their surroundings.
These and a score of other herbs and shrubs clamber blithely upward and clothe the rocky hillside with beauty, but the queen of the place is the flowering dogwood. No other shrub has such airy blitheness of decorative beauty. ”

“ Most mature examples are 11⁄2 to 31⁄2 inches in trunk diameter, and rarely more than twelve feet high. Dogwood grows in greatest abundance [Pg 125] on dry rocky slopes where other trees are scarce. In small areas it may be the dominant tree, often closely associated with chinquapin oak and red elm. In parts of the woodland where there are larger trees, dogwood may form an understory, its development depending largely on the amount of light passing through the upper leaf canopy. Where the canopy is dense and nearly continuous, dogwood tends to be eliminated by shading. ”

“ Sometimes they tore aside stiff clumps of dogwood twined thickly with creeping plants: sometimes squeezed through the closely-growing hazel and blanket-wood, stepping downwards upon heaps of slender, long-fallen trunks, so rotten, under their covering of ferns, that at any moment a foot incautiously planted might sink down past the knee. They climbed over huge fallen trees, deep-brown with damp moss or slippery with wet—trunks on which it was no easy matter to get a footing; where, once gained, the slightest misstep might end in a long slither and a broken ankle. ”

“ When the dogwood blossoms are like drifting snow on the hillsides, when little streams covered over with mountain ivy come dashing, cool, damp and fragrant, from far up the mountains, oh, then it is a joy to live! ”

“ In some situations where forest has recently closed in, most of the dogwoods are dead or dying. Especially on formerly cut-over north slopes, where oak and hickory have sprung up in a dense stand 20 feet high, with a thick canopy, most of the dogwoods have been eliminated.
On the remaining hillside prairie near the northwest corner of the Reservation, dogwood is the most prominent of the trees and shrubs encroaching onto the area since it has been protected from fire—a period of approximately 20 years. There are dense thickets of dogwood along the borders of the prairie and the woodland edge. ”

“ Take a thought for the tree; cut the branches clean with a knife. Take them off where they are thick, and you will leave the tree better in shape than when you came. Do not strip it of flowers. This will cripple it. A few sprays of dogwood, prettily arranged in a vase, are a delight to the eye. A crowded mass of them is not at all.
The four outer wings of white are not the petals of a dogwood blossom. They are colourless leaves, the full-grown scales of the winter flower buds. The notch at the tip is made by the falling off of the withered tip which in winter protected the flowers. ”

“ No tree is more desirable in the garden or park in regions where the summer’s sun is sufficiently hot to ensure the production of its flowers through the perfect development of the branchlets.” The Jamaica dogwood, the root-bark of which is poisonous, is the species Piscidia Erythrina, of the natural order Leguminosae. ”

“ In all our Floridian rambles, we never yet have got sight of this creature; though we have explored all the moist places, and sedgy, swampy dells, where azaleas and blue iris and white lilies grow. But the tradition that such things are inspires a wholesome care never to set a foot down without looking exactly where it goes. "The branch," we find, is lighted up in many places by the white, showy blossoms of the dogwood, of which, also, we gather great store. We pile in flowers—azalea and dogwood—till our wagon is full, and then proceed with a trowel to take up many nameless beauties. ”

“ It seldom has much, and small trunks often none; but when dogwood reaches maturity it develops heart. Sometimes the heartwood is no larger than a lead pencil in trunks forty or fifty years old. The heart is brown, sapwood is white, and is the part wanted by the users of dogwood. Annual rings are obscure and it is a tree of slow growth. The wood is as nearly without figure as any in this country. It seldom or never goes to sawmills. The logs are too small. Most of the supply is bought by manufacturers of shuttles and golf stick heads, in this country and Europe. ”

“ Its spray of twigs and branchlets, formed by a succession of exquisitely proportioned waves and upward curves, is not as conspicuous, though hardly less ornamental at this season than the fruit.
The Dogwood in Bloom
As a shrub, being among the very first to bloom, it decorates the forest borders in spring, or stands conspicuously within the forest. It is found everywhere in the Appalachian region. In the coastal plain it is associated with the longleaf pine, or may be seen among broadleaf trees, or standing among red junipers, as tall as they and quite at home in their company. ”

“ Wild roses abound almost everywhere. One species, blooming freely along the woodland paths, is from two to three inches in diameter, and more fragrant than any other wild rose I ever saw excepting the sweetbriar. This rose and three species of spiraea fairly fill the air with fragrance after a shower. And how brightly then do the red berries of the dogwood shine out from the warm yellow-green of leaves and mosses! ”

“ The Pacific Coast outdoes the rest of the country in the size of its forest trees. Superlatives in vegetation abound where the breath of the Japan current tempers the air. The Western dogwood often reaches one hundred feet in height in the forests near Seattle. Its flowers have six, instead of four, of the petal-like, white bracts, each narrower and pointed, and without the terminal notch. ”

“ Not a sound was there abroad, scarcely a leaf stirred; she could have stayed for hours there gazing on the calm beauty of nature, and communing with her own heart, when suddenly a stirring rustling sound caught her ear; it came from a hollow channel on one side of the promontory, which was thickly overgrown with the shrubby dogwood, wild roses, and bilberry bushes. Imagine the terror which seized the poor girl on perceiving the head of a black elk breaking through the covert of the bushes. ”

“ But the Swedish robin's taste for its berries is to be noted by you, because, first, the dogwood berry is commonly said to be so bitter that it is not eaten by birds (Loudon, "Arboretum," ii., 497, 1.) ; and, secondly, because it is a pretty coincidence that this most familiar of household birds should feed fondly from the tree which gives the housewife her spindle,—the proper name of the dogwood in English, French, and German being alike "Spindle-tree." It feeds, however, with us, certainly, most on worms and insects. ”

“ Small-Flowered Dogwood (Cornus asperifolia) is hardly recognized as a dogwood because it does not have showy floral bracts. The rough leaves become very lovely in the fall as the veins take on a reddish-purple color. It is a very common shrub in thickets along streams or in moist ground from Texas to Southern Ontario. The flowers bloom in Texas from April to June, and the white fruits mature in the fall. The fruits are about 1⁄4 inch in diameter and contain 2 seeds with a stony coat which is covered by a thin pulp. ”

“ When March has again returned, and the Dogwood expands its pure blossoms to the sun, the Cranes soar away on their broad wings, bidding our country adieu for a season, flocks of water-fowls are pursuing their early migrations, the frogs issue from their muddy beds to pipe a few notes of languid joy, the Swallow has just arrived, and the Bluebird has returned to his box. The Wood Duck almost alone remains on the pool, 57 as if to afford us an opportunity of studying the habits of its tribe. ”

“ Leaves usually opposite; sepals usually 4, calyx tube joined to the ovary; petals usually 4, or absent; stamens 4, alternate with the petals; ovary inferior; fruit a drupe.
Flowering Dogwood (Cornus florida) grows from Massachusetts to Ontario, Texas, and Mexico, but few people realize that it grows very luxuriantly and is widespread in the woods of East Texas. The beauty of the dogwood is not in the flowers, as one might expect, but in the four broad white floral leaves (bracts) which surround the flower-cluster. These bracts are a creamy white but are often tinged with pink. ”

“ The large leafy lichens on the white pines, especially on the outside of the wood, look almost a golden yellow in the light reflected from the snow, while deeper in the wood they are ash-colored. In the swamps the dry, yellowish-colored fruit of the poison dogwood hangs like jewelry on long, drooping stems. It is pleasant to meet it, it has so much character relatively to man. Here is a stump on which a squirrel has sat and stripped the pine cones of a neighboring tree. Their cores and scales lie all around. ”

“ Flickers stay in the Sandhills all winter, but the infrequent snowstorms cause them lots of trouble in finding food. On January 10, 1927, I found quite a little coterie of birds had scratched the leaves under a dogwood tree until they had a space twelve feet in diameter more or less cleared of snow. Here, among other species of birds, were two Flickers foraging among the leaves for fallen dogwood berries. ”