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Cornus florida
Also called American Boxwood, Eastern Flowering Dogwood, White Dogwood, Arrowwood, Dogwood, Florida Dogwood, Virgina Dogwood
Flowering dogwood is a small deciduous tree native to eastern North America, grown for its showy spring bracts and autumn foliage. Moist, acidic, well-drained soil with some afternoon shade is the key to growing it well.
Cornus florida, the flowering dogwood or American dogwood, is a species of flowering tree in the family Cornaceae native to eastern North America and northern Mexico. An endemic population once spanned from southernmost coastal Maine south to northern Florida and west to the Mississippi River. The tree is commonly planted as an ornamental in residential and public areas because of its showy bracts and interesting bark structure.
Flowering dogwood does best horticulturally in moist, acidic soil in a site with some afternoon shade, but good morning sun. It does not do well when exposed to intense heat sources such as adjacent parking lots or air conditioning compressors. It also has a low salinity tolerance. The hardiness zone is 5–9 and the preferred pH is between 6.0 and 7.0. In urban and suburban settings, care should be taken not to inflict mower damage on the trunk or roots, as this increases the tree's susceptibility to disease and pest pressure. The common flowering dogwood has been placed on the endangered species list in Ontario. Sites should be selected for reasonably well-drained, fertile soils; full sun is recommended in high-hazard areas (such as stream or pond banks). New plantings should be mulched to a depth of 5 to 10 cm (2 to 4 in), avoiding the stem. Dead wood and leaves should be pruned and completely removed and destroyed yearly. Plants should be watered weekly during droughts, with watering done in the morning, avoiding wetting the foliage.
For humans, the fruit is poisonous. The Houma people of modern Louisiana and Mississippi used scrapings from the bark or roots in a remedy for malaria. Compounds isolated from the bark have shown moderate antiplasmodial and antileishmanial activity in lab experiments, partly supporting its use as a quinine substitute. Many Native American groups also used the root bark as a fever reducer, a pain reliver, an antidiarrheal, and a skin astringent. The bark itself was used for headaches and backaches, a throat aid, and as an infusion for diseases such as measles. The flowers were used for colic pain relief and as a fever reducer. The species has been used in the production of inks and scarlet dyes. The hard, dense wood has been used for products such as golf club heads, mallets, wooden rake teeth, tool handles, jeweler's boxes and butcher's blocks. It was used to treat dogs with mange, which may be how it got its name. The red berries are not edible, despite some rumors otherwise.
Red-Barked Dogwood · Alternateleaf dogwood · Canadian Bunchberry · Bentham's cornel · Giant dogwood · Kousa dogwood · Cornelian-cherry · Pacific dogwood · Asiatic dogwood · Bloodtwig dogwood · Redosier dogwood · Western cordilleran bunchberry
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Cornus florida 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.
