Cornus florida (Flowering Dogwood) is a species of dogwood native to eastern North America, from southern Maine west to southern Ontario and eastern Kansas, and south to northern Florida and eastern Texas and also in Illinois, with a disjunct population in eastern Mexico in Nuevo León and Veracruz.
Dogwoods are deciduous and rarely attain a height of more than 40 feet or a diameter of 12 to 18 inches. The leaves are opposite, simple, oval with acute tips, 6-13 cm long and 4-6 cm broad, with an apparently entire margin (actually very finely toothed, under a lens); they turn a rich red-brown in fall. The deeply ridged and broken bark resembles alligator hide. Flowering dogwood has large, showy, deeply notched bracts, 4 of which surround each cluster of inconspicuous perfect flowers, in bloom from May to June. The fruit clusters on this shrub-like tree are scarlet red.
The flowers are individually small and inconspicuous, with four greenish-yellow petals 4 mm long. Around 20 flowers are produced in a dense, rounded, umbel-shaped inflorescence, or flower-head, 1-2 cm in diameter. The flower-head is surrounded by four conspicuous large white, pink or red "petals" (actually bracts), each bract 3 cm long and 2.5 cm broad, rounded, and often with a distinct notch at the apex. The flowers are bisexual.
Back to Top
Wildlife: The fruit is choice fall and winter food of the gray squirrel and fox squirrel, bobwhite, cedar waxwing, cardinal, flicker, mockingbird, robin, wild turkey, and woodpecker. The leaves and twigs are choice food for the white-tailed deer. It is not an important nesting plant.
Ornamental: It is an important ornamental tree used around homes and office buildings because of its striking display when it is in full bloom.
Back to Top
