pleasure, because of its fineness and its regular venation, or marking
with ribs. In the fall, when the flowers of purest white have been
succeeded by oblong berries of brightest scarlet, the foliage remains
awhile to contrast with the brilliance of the fruit. The frosts soon
drop the leaves, and then the berries stand out in all their
attractiveness, offering food to every passing bird, and thus carrying
out another of nature's cunning provisions for the reproduction of the
species. Seeds in the crops of birds travel free and far, and some fall
on good ground!

Is it not sad to know that the brave, bold dogwood, holding out its
spring flag of truce 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.

[Illustration: Floral bracts or involucres of the dogwood]

I have been wondering as to the reason for the naming of the cornuses as
dogwoods, and find in Bailey's great Cyclopedia of Horticulture the
definite statement that the name was attached to an English red-branched
species because a decoction of the bark was used to wash mangy dogs!
This is but another illustration of the inadequacy and inappropriateness
of "common" names.

There are many good dogwoods--the Cornus family is admirable, both in
its American and its foreign members--but I must not become encyclopedic
in these sketches of just a few tree favorites. I will venture to
mention one shrub dogwood--I never heard its common name, but it has
three botanical names (_Cornus sericea_, or _coerulea_, or _Amomum_,
the latter preferred) to make up for the lack. It ought to be called
the blue-berried dogwood, by reason of its extremely beautiful fruit,
which formed a singular and delightful contrast to the profusion of red
and scarlet fruits so much in evidence, one September day, in Boston's
berry-full Franklin Park.

[Illustration: The red-bud in bloom]

The red-bud, as I have said, is miscalled Judas-tree, the tradition
being that it was on a tree of this family, but not of the American
branch, happily and obviously, that the faithless disciple hanged
himself after his final interview with the priests who had played upon
his cupidity. Indeed, tradition is able to tell even