Round-leaved cornel

Weak, relaxed digestion with a pale, flabby tongue and poor appetite calling for a warming bitter rather than a purely cooling astringent

Convalescent debility following intermittent fever where tone needs restoring without the harshness of stronger astringents

Overview. Cornus circinata, now generally recognized botanically as Cornus rugosa, is a shrub of the dogwood family native to shaded hillsides and stream banks across the northern United States and Canada. Physiomedicalist and Eclectic practitioners of the nineteenth century used its dried bark as a bitter tonic and mild astringent, closely related in use to the more widely known flowering dogwood, Cornus florida. It held a modest place as a home-grown substitute for imported cinchona bark in the treatment of intermittent fevers and general debility.

Clinical Notes. This bark was reached for when a gentler alternative to the more strongly astringent Cornus florida was wanted, particularly in cases where tissue tone was already relaxed and a harsh astringent risked further constriction without restoring function.

Properties and Uses. The bark is a tonic of the rather astringent class; with mild stimulating and somewhat alterant properties. It is less astringent than the cornus florida, but is used in the same general classes of cases. A moderate portion of it may be used to some advantage with relaxant alterants in the treatment of feeble scrofulous ulcers and abscesses, and to make a good application to weak and scrofulous ulcers, and has been spoken of as a wash for scalled-head. Medical Herbalism journal and medherb.com The Physiomedical Dispensatory by William Cook, M.D., 1869

Description. Natural Order, Cornaceae. Genus CORNUS: Shrubs or trees, with mostly opposite leaves, small flowers, and sometimes a very large involucre. Calyx minutely fourtoothed; petals four, oblong, spreading; stamens four, with slender filaments; fruit a small drupe, with a two-celled and two-seeded stone.