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Cornus controversa
Also called Wedding Cake Tree, Table Dogwood
Giant dogwood (Cornus controversa) is a deciduous tree grown for its tiered branches, summer panicles of white flowers and purple autumn colour. It needs room to spread and does best in a sheltered, temperate garden with fertile, moist soil.
Cornus controversa (wedding cake tree), syn. Swida controversa, is a species of flowering plant in the dogwood family Cornaceae. It is native to China, Korea, the Himalayas and Japan. It is a deciduous tree growing to 50 ft (15 m), with multiple tiered branches. Flat panicles of white flowers (cymes to 3–7 in (8–18 cm) wide) appear in summer, followed by globose black fruit (drupes to 1⁄2 in (13 mm)). Ovate dark green leaves (3–6 in (8–15 cm) long) are glaucous underneath and turn red-purple in autumn. It is cultivated in gardens and parks in temperate regions.
It is also sometimes referred to as Bothrocaryum controversum (Hemsl.) Pojark when seeds are offered for online sale.
Red-Barked Dogwood · Alternateleaf dogwood · Canadian Bunchberry · Bentham's cornel · Flowering dogwood · Kousa dogwood · Cornelian-cherry · Pacific dogwood · Asiatic dogwood · Bloodtwig dogwood · Redosier dogwood · Western cordilleran bunchberry
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Cornus controversa by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
