Synonyms: Flowering cornel, Boxwood, Bitter Redberry, Cornel. New England Boxwood, Dog-Tree, Flowering Dogwood, American Dogwood, Benthamidia florida, Box Tree, Virginian Dogwood.
Part Used: The dried bark of the root.
Habitat: The United States, from Massachusetts to Florida.

Grieve's classic 'A Modern Herbal':

Before Europeans discovered America, the Red Indians were using the bark in the same way as Peruvian bark. It is valuable in intermittent fevers, as a weak tonic for the stomach, and antiperiodic, as a stimulant and astringent.

As a poultice in anthrax, indolent ulcers, and inflamed erysipelas, it is tonic, stimulant and antiseptic. In the recent state it should be avoided, as it disagrees with stomach and bowels. Cinchona bark or sulphate of quinea often replace it officially. 35 grains of Cornus bark are equal to 30 grains of cinchona bark.

King's American Dispensatory.
by Harvey Wickes Felter, M.D., and John Uri Lloyd, Phr. M., Ph. D., 1898.

Dogwood bark is tonic, astringent, and slightly stimulant. It forms an excellent substitute for Peruvian bark, having frequently proved efficient in periodic attacks when the foreign drug failed. It may be used in many cases where quinine is indicated and can not be administered, owing to idiosyncrasy, etc.

It may be used with advantage in cases where tonics are required, in periodical fevers, typhoid fevers, etc. Its internal employment increases the strength and frequency of the pulse, and elevates the temperature of the body. It is useful in headaches from quinine, in general exhaustion and pyrosis.

An extract of the bark prepared by boiling it in water, and evaporating to the proper consistence, will be found one of the best forms in which to administer it. Dose of the powdered bark, from 20 to 60 grains, as often as required; of the extract, from 5 to 10 grains.

The Dispensatory of the United States of America.
edited by Joseph P. Remington, Horatio C. Wood and others, 1918.

This drug, which was at one time official in the U. S. P., is described by the N. F. as "the dried bark of the root of Cornus florida Linne (Fam. Cornaceae).

Dogwood bark was used many years ago as an antiperiodic in intermittent fever, but it is only a feeble, astringent tonic. Formerly from one to two ounces of the powder were given in the interval between the paroxysms of intermittent fever. The N. F. IV also recognizes its fluidextract. The dose of this fluidextract is from half a fluidrachm to a fluidrachm (1.8-3.75 mils).

The American Materia Medica, Therapeutics and Pharmacognosy.
by Finley Ellingwood, M.D., 1919.

Extractum Corni Floridae Fluidum, Fluid Extract of Cornus Florida. Dose, from a half to two drams.
Specific Medicine Cornus. Dose, from five to sixty minims.
Therapy—This agent is indicated not only to correct the atonic conditions of the glandular structure of the gastro-intestinal apparatus in malaria, but as an antidote to the malarial poison itself. It has marked control over many of the manifestations of malaria.

Its influence upon the stomach in these cases increases the appetite at once, improves the character of the digestion and relieves the drowsiness and dullness apt to follow imperfect digestion. It is a tonic in enfeebled conditions of the stomach from whatever cause and improves intestinal digestion.