[ANSTHRLD] Conflict check, please

[Tim McDaniel]

On Tue, 21 Oct 2008, Cisco Cividanes <engtrktwo at gmail.com> wrote:
>> - Europeans likely saw dogwood flowers in period
>
> This is a forgone conclusion as I understand it. I beleive that the
> Catholic church holds that the Dogwood is an emblum of the Cross used
> to crucify Jesus. More to the point, the story of the Dogwood was
> being told to the faithful in medeival europe.

?  Dogwoods are in the Old World?  I thought they were New World only.
... <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogwood>  Huh!  Almost all are New
World or Chinese, but "Common Dogwood" is European.  And I'd not
realized that there were so very very many species.  I just knew of
the one.

But the pictures raise another problem: what's a "dogwood flower"?
Going by the little looking I've done there, what I was thinking of as
a "dogwood flower" is actually specifically the flower of Cornus
florida, Flowering Dogwood.  (Actually, the flower is the center and
the four white petals are bracts, but that's way picky).  For example,
Cornus nuttallii, Pacific Dogwood, in the same subgenus, has
six-petalled flowers.

More to the point, Common Dogwood's flowers, at
<http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Cornus_sanguinea>, are shown as
small, in clusters, and with four long narrow petals each.  If "Common
Dogwood" is its common name in English, that is, if it's the
"whippletree" and "dagwood" from Middle English, then "dogwood
blossom" meant something quite different in period.  European Cornel
is rather like it, except with yellow petals.  The only other dogwood
species listed as being in Europe is Cornus suecica, Eurasian Dwarf
Cornel or Bunchberry, which has quatrefoil flowers.  (Canadian Dwarf
Cornel has more pointed petals but otherwise resembles it, as does
Kousa Dogwood (Japan and China).)

Roughleaf Dogwood, west of the Appalachians, has clusters of small
flowers, rather like Common Dogwood.  Silky Dogwood, much the same.
Siberian Dogwood, Red Osier Dogwood, ditto.  I'm thinking that
clusters of small long-and-skinny flowers is characteristic of
dogwoods (esp. with "Flowering" Dogwood pressing its bracts into
service).

(As a result, I'm dubious about the legend, as shown in Wikipedia:

     There is a Christian legend of unknown origin that proclaims that
     the cross used to crucify Jesus was constructed of dogwood.[3] As
     the story goes, during the time of Jesus, the dogwood was larger
     and stronger than it is today and was the largest tree in the area
     of Jerusalem. After his crucifixion, Jesus changed the plant to
     its current form: he shortened it and twisted its branches to
     assure an end to its use for the construction of crosses. He also
     transformed its inflorescence into a representation of the
     crucifixion itself, with the four white bracts cross-shaped, which
     represent the four corners of the cross, each bearing a rusty
     indentation as of a nail and the red stamens of the flower,
     represents Jesus' crown of thorns, and the clustered red fruit
     represent his blood.[4]

Common Dogwood has unblemished flowers.  It's the Flowering Dogwood,
eastern North America, that has four rust-colored marks at the ends of
its blossoms.  I'd like to see a medieval source.)


Anyway.  What's a "dogwood flower"?  The only precedent I see is from
<http://heraldry.sca.org/heraldry/laurel/precedents/wilhelm/wilhelmcombined.html>,
with

     The difference between a rose and a dogwood blossom is basically
     five instead of four petals, plus barbs. There is thus not enough
     difference. WVS [36] [LoAR 23 Feb 81], p. 7

So I don't see an SCA definition in compiled precedents.  With so much
variation, and two different types, and with the ban on Linnaean
heraldry, I think a good case can be made that "dogwood blossom"
can't be registered because it's ambiguous and non-reproducable, or at
least that it's not the dogwood that Americans are familiar with.

So am I raving insanely again?

Danielis Lindocolina
-- 
Tim McDaniel, tmcd at panix.com