Flowering dogwood

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Flowering dogwood

Flowering dogwood leaves

Flowering dogwood leaf buds

Flowering dogwood fruit

Flowering dogwood flower bud

Flowering dogwood

Flowering dogwood bark

Flowering dogwood leaves

Flowering dogwood fruit

Flowering dogwood bracts and flowers

Morphology

Trunk

Erect; bark grayish brown to reddish brown, fissures shallow, plates more or less rectangular, thin; wood light brown, hard.

Twigs

Reddish gray to purplish green, flexible, smooth, appressed-hairy; leaf scars crescent-shaped; buds reddish brown, ovoid, .08 to .2 inch, apex obtuse, scales hairy.

Leaves

Deciduous, opposite, simple; petiole .12 to .8 inch, pubescent; blade ovate to elliptic, 2 to 4.8 inches long, 1.2 to 2.8 inches wide, base wedge-shaped to rounded, margins entire, apex abruptly acuminate, lower surface pale green, glabrous or pubescent, upper surface dark green, glabrous or pubescent, lateral veins in 4-6 pairs, mostly arising from proximal half of blade.

Flowers

Inflorescences terminal on current-year wood, cymose heads, 12-30-flowered, .4 to .8 inch diameter; subtending bracts 4, white, sometimes tinged pink, petal-like, usually unequal, obovate to round, .8 to 2 inches long, .8 to 1.6 inches wide, apex notched; peduncles .4 to 1inch; pedicels absent. Flowers bisexual, radially symmetric; hypanthium cylindric, .14 to .16 inch; sepals 4, connate proximally, calyx lobes green, triangular, .02 to .03 inch; petals 4, inserted on nectar disk margin, lobes greenish yellow to cream-colored, narrowly lanceolate, .12 to .16 inch, stamens 4, .16 to .18 inch; style 1, .1 to .12 inch.

Fruit

September; drupes, reddish orange, ellipsoid, .35 to .6 inch long, .24 to .3 inch wide, minutely pubescent; stone 1, tan, ellipsoid, symmetric, .28 to .43 inch long, .17 to .28 inch wide, with 5-7 longitudinal grooves.

Ecology

Habitat

Sandy to gravelly soils in forests and woodlands, bluffs above streams.

Distribution

Cherokee County, Kansas

Practical Information

Uses

A number of Native American tribes used the bark to make infusions or decoctions to treat a variety of ailments.

Additional Notes