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Cornus rugosa Lam.

Modern name

Cornus rugosa Lam.

Synonyms

C. circinata L'Hérit.; Swida rugosa (Lam.) Rydb.

A deciduous shrub 6 to 10 ft high, sometimes single-stemmed and like a small tree; young shoots green, warted, becoming purplish. Leaves roundish, inclined to ovate, abruply pointed; 212 to 5 in. long, nearly as wide; almost glabrous above, but covered beneath with a dense greyish wool; veins in six to eight pairs; stalk about 12 in. long. Flowers white, in slightly downy cymes 2 to 3 in. diameter. Fruit pale blue, about 14 in. diameter.

Native of E. Canada and the United States; introduced in 1784. This species is very rarely seen in English gardens; but as I saw it, covered with flower in the Arnold Arboretum about mid-June, it was quite ornamental and had assumed the form of a miniature tree. Among the swarm of North American cornels this can be distinguished by its almost orbicular leaves, very downy beneath.

C. × slavinii Rehd., is a hybrid between C. rugosa and C. stolonifera, first noticed in Seneca Park, Rochester, New York, near the gorge of the Genesee River. The leaves are woolly beneath, and the young wood is purplish as in C. rugosa, but the habit is more that of C. stolonifera, only more upright. Fruit bluish, rarely white. Leaves intermediate in shape. (See Rhodora, Vol. 12, p. 111.)


Genus

Cornus

Other species in the genus