It is not at all fastidious about soil,
thriving well in that of very opposite description. It deserves to be
extensively cultivated, if only for the profusion of brightly-tinted
flowers, which completely cover the shoots before the leaves have
appeared. C. Mas aurea-elegantissima, the tricolor-leaved Dogwood, is a
strikingly ornamental shrub, with green leaves encircled with a golden
band, the whole being suffused with a faint pinky tinge. It is of more
slender growth than the species, and a very desirable acquisition to
any collection of hardy ornamental shrubs. C. Mas argenteo-variegata is
another pretty shrub, the leaves being margined with clear white.
C. NUTTALLII grows to fully 50 feet in height, and is one of the most
beautiful of the Oregon and Californian forest trees. The flower bracts
are of large size, often 6 inches across, the individual bracts being
broad and white, and fully 2-1/2 inches long.
C. OFFICINALIS is a Japanese species, that is, however, quite hardy in
this country, and nearly resembles the better known C. Mas, but from
which it may at once be known by the tufts of brownish hairs that are
present in the axils of the principal leaf veins.
C. STOLONIFERA.--Red Osier Dogwood. North America, 1741. This has
rather inconspicuous flowers, that are succeeded by whitish fruit, and
is of greatest value for the ruddy tint of the young shoots.
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