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Flowering Dogwood
Cornus florida
by
Trey Blankinship
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One of America’s most popular trees is the flowering
dogwood. The dogwood is in the kingdom Plantae and the phylum Magnoliophyta.
It is in the class Magnoliopsida, meaning they have two embryonic seed
leaves, and it is in the order Cornales, which includes many flowering
plants. The dogwood is from the family Cornaceae which mostly consists of
woody shrubs and trees that have simple leaves and an attractive display in
the fall. Finally, it is in the genus Cornus, or the dogwoods, and
are in the species florida, meaning flowering. The flowering
dogwood has many other common names including the Virginia dogwood, American
dogwood, and the American Cornelian tree. |
The flowering dogwood is a small tree that grows to a height of about
fifty feet. It may have one or several short trunks that are held
in the ground by small roots that grow no deeper than three feet.
The bark is reddish brown and broken up into small square blocks.
The branches of the flowering dogwood often spread wider than the height
of the tree and have a layered affect. The leaves are pointed,
with parallel veins and are green on top with a paler color on the
bottom. In autumn, the upper surface of the leaf turns red.
What makes the flowering dogwood so beautiful are its flowers. The
flowers are small and usually yellow. They are tightly clustered
and surrounded by four large, white bracts, which are like petals.
Flowering dogwoods are one of the first trees, native to the east, to
flower in the spring. They flower anytime between mid-March to
late May. The dogwood produces a fruit that is an important food
source to many animals. |
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The fruit are small, clustered drupes, which are
fleshy fruits that usually have a single hard stone that encloses a seed.
Deer, squirrels, rabbits, and a large number of birds feed on this fruit
after it ripens in the fall. Animals feeding on the fruits, containing
the seeds, help the flowering dogwood reproduce. The seed will pass
through an animal’s digestive tract unharmed and then be released in the
animal’s waste at another location. You can find the flowering dogwood throughout most of
the entire eastern half of the United States. It ranges from southern Maine
to northern Florida and as far west as eastern Texas. The dogwood is
generally found in fertile, well drained, but moist sites. It is usually an
under story tree in hardwood forests or pine forests, but can also be found
out in open fields. Flowering dogwoods are also very shade-tolerant trees
and can live in the shade of taller trees in the forest.
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Like all other plants, the flowering dogwood will come
in contact with many pests, diseases and natural disasters that can slow
down the rate at which it reproduces. The most damaging pest to the dogwood
is the dogwood borer. The dogwood borer is destructive as a larva. It will
feed in the inner bark and eventually the damaged bark on the trunk or
branch will fall off. Like the American chestnut which suffers from the
chestnut blight, the flowering dogwood has recently been damaged by a fungal
disease called the dogwood blight. The disease eventually kills the leaves,
and in two to three years the tree dies. The increasing population of
people and the thin bark of the flowering dogwood have also made it very
susceptible to fire.
The flowering dogwood is one of the most popular trees
in North America because of its many special uses. It is highly used in
landscaping because of its early bloom in the spring. It also provides good
shade and because of its small build, it is a great tree for a small yard.
In colonial times, Native Americans used the roots for a red dye and made a
tea from the bark that was said to reduce fever. The wood of the tree was
once used for shuttles for textile weaving, but has recently been replaced
by plastic. Other things the dogwood was used for and continues to be used
for in smaller portions include: spools, small pulleys, and mallet heads.
The flowering dogwood is Virginia’s state tree and would make a beautiful
addition to any yard.
Written spring 2004, as a service learning
project for Dr. Gary Coté's Biology 102 class at Radford University. Copyright
Pathways for Radford. |
