Cornus sessilis Torr.

Little is known in cultivation of this North Californian shrub, which in a wild state is 10 to 15 ft high, and was introduced in 1903. The young bark is greenish, and clothed with silky hairs; leaves shortly stalked, crowded at the end of the twigs; 11⁄2 to 3 in. long, ovate, tapered at both ends, but more gradually towards the apex; nearly glabrous above, and with flattened hairs and tufts of down in the vein-axils beneath; veins in about four pairs. Flowers 1⁄4 in. across, yellow, crowded in stalkless umbels, at first enclosed by four ovate bracts 1⁄3 in. long; flower-stalks silky, 1⁄3 in. long. Fruit oval, 1⁄2 in. long, dark purple. This shrub, producing its flowers, themselves stalked, in clusters without stalks, from the axils of four bracts and on leafless twigs, belongs to the same group as C. mas and C. officinalis.