Flowering Dogwood - Cornus florida

The Flowering Dogwood tree found in the Gardens of the World is species of dogwood native to eastern North America.

This is a small deciduous tree growing to 10 metres high; often wider than it is tall when mature, with a trunk diameter of up to 30 centre metres.  The leaves are opposite, simple oval with acute tips 6 – 13 centre metres long; they turn a rich red-brown in fall.

While most of the wild Flowering Dogwood trees have white bracts some selected cultivars of this Flowering Dogwood tree also have pink bracts, some even almost a true red.  The fruit is a cluster of two to ten clumps each 10-15 millimetre long and about 8 millimetre which ripen in the late summer.  They are an important food source for dozens of species of birds, which then distribute the seeds.

Other old names now rarely used include American Dogwood, Bird Cherry, Florida Dogwood, and Indian Arrow wood, Cornelian Tree, White Cornel, False Box and False Boxwood.  This species has in the past been used in the production of inks, scarlet dyes and as a guanine substitute.  The hard dense wood of the Flowering Dogwood has been used for products such as golf clubs heads, mallets, wooden rake teeth, tooth handles, jeweller’s boxes and butchers blocks.

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