[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.
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 now marvelous stories to travelers, and not long ago I was more amused than edified to hear an eloquent clergyman just returned from abroad tell how he had been shown the fruits of the Judas-tree, "in form like beautiful apples, fair to the eye, but within bitter and disappointing;" and he moralized just as vigorously on this fable as if it had been true, as he thought it. He didn't particularly relish the suggestion that the pulpit ought to be fairly certain of its facts, whether of theology or of science, in these days; but he succumbed to the submission of authority for the statement that the Eastern so-called Judas-tree, _Cercis siliquastrum_, bore a small pod, like a bean, and was not unpleasant, any more than the pod was attractive.
I mention this only in reprobation of the unpleasant name that really hurts the estimation of one of the most desirable and beautiful of America's smaller trees. The American red-bud is a joy in the spring about dogwood time, for it is all bloom, and of a most striking color. Deep pink, or purplish light red, or clear bright magenta--all these color names fit it approximately only. One is conscious of a warm glow in looking toward the little trees, with every branch clear down to the main stem not only outlined but covered with richest color.