Flowering dogwood (Cornus florida): what the agencies record

This page reports what US federal publications say about one tree. It does not identify trees from descriptions or photos and does not say what should be done with any tree. The family overview, tree species in the agency records, explains the sources and holds the comparison table.

At a glance

Item	What the source records
Scientific name	Cornus florida L., dogwood family (Silvics)
Other names	Dogwood, boxwood and cornel (Silvics)
Native status, USDA PLANTS	Native in Canada and in the lower 48 states
Size, Silvics	Largest recorded 16.8 m (55 ft) tall and 48 cm (19 in) in diameter; on good sites commonly 9 to 12 m (30 to 40 ft) tall and 20 to 40 cm (8 to 16 in)
Age, Silvics	Individual plants may live for 125 years
Green weight of the wood, NRS-38	53 lb per cubic foot, without bark

Native range and where it grows

The Silvics of North America handbook (Agriculture Handbook 654, 1990) gives a range from extreme southwestern Maine west to New York, extreme southern Ontario, central Michigan, central Illinois and central Missouri, south to extreme southeast Kansas, eastern Oklahoma and east Texas, and east to north Florida. It adds that a variety grows in the mountains of Nuevo Leon and Veracruz, Mexico. The handbook says the species grows on soils from deep and moist along minor streams to light textured and well drained in the uplands, most often at a pH of 6 to 7, and is virtually absent on poorly drained clay soils. It grows well on flats and on lower or middle slopes but not on upper slopes and ridges, and the handbook ties its failure on extremely dry sites to its shallow root system. Dogwood is named in 22 of the 90 Society of American Foresters forest cover types and is one of the most numerous understory species in loblolly pine stands in the South.

Bracts, flowers and fruit

Silvics notes that the showy petal-like parts are not flowers: they are four snow-white bracts around crowded small yellowish flowers, forming a display 5 to 10 cm (2 to 4 in) across before the leaves appear. Flowering runs from mid-March in the South to late May in the North. The handbook says occasional trees in nature have salmon-colored or light-pink bracts, and that pink and red forms and other cultivars are propagated from clones by commercial nurseries. The fruit is a bright red drupe about 13 mm (0.5 in) long, ripening from September to late October, with a bony stone that usually holds two seeds, and the handbook says the fruit is poisonous to humans. Trees grown from seed commonly flower and fruit at 6 years, a good seed crop comes about every other year, and birds and other animals are the main seed spreaders.

Growth, roots and shade

The handbook calls flowering dogwood fast growing and short lived. Height growth in the southern Appalachians is fairly rapid for the first 20 to 30 years and then practically ceases, and near the northern limit the plant is a many-branched shrub. The root system is described as extremely shallow, which Silvics says undoubtedly accounts for susceptibility to drought, and leaves are often the first to wilt in dry weather in southern forests. It classes the species as very tolerant of shade. The handbook calls it a soil improver, because the litter breaks down faster than that of most other species: three times faster than hickory and ten times faster than oak or sycamore. It reports that the tree sprouts most profusely when cut in late winter and also layers extensively.

Wood and uses

Silvics describes the wood as smooth, hard and close textured. It says virtually all dogwood harvested was once used for textile weaving shuttles, until plastic shuttles replaced them, and that small amounts are used for spools, small pulleys, malletheads, jewelers' blocks and turnpins. The handbook treats dogwood more often as a weed tree in timber stand improvement than as a crop. For wildlife it records fruit eaten by at least 36 bird species, including ruffed grouse, bobwhite quail and wild turkey, and heavy browsing of foliage and twigs by deer and rabbits. It calls the tree a favored ornamental, highly regarded for landscaping and urban forestry. The Wood Handbook table of strength figures does not list the species, so no strength figures are given here. The green weight is in the NRS-38 table, the same figure used in the log weight calculator.

Insects and diseases the handbook names

Silvics says little is known of the pest status of insects on wild flowering dogwoods, but that many have been identified attacking cultivated ornamentals.

Borers and girdlers. The dogwood borer, which it calls a noteworthy pest of cultivated trees, two flatheaded borers, the dogwood twig borer and the twig girdler.
Scales and gall. Scurfy scale and dogwood scale, and dogwood club gall, a clublike swelling on small twigs caused by midge larvae that the handbook calls a serious problem in some areas.
Leaf feeders. The redhumped caterpillar, a tussock moth, the io moth and scarab beetles, with the Japanese weevil and Asiatic oak weevil listed as introduced pests.
Diseases. Basal stem canker from Phytophthora cactorum, which it calls the most lethal disease and says may girdle the tree; target cankers; Armillaria; leaf spots; twig blight; Verticillium wilt; and several viruses isolated from leaves.
Other damage. The thin bark is readily injured by fire, flooding is detrimental, and sunscald, drought injury and freezing are listed as noninfectious problems. Deer and rabbits browse young trees heavily.

For who takes reports of regulated pests, see reporting a pest in the United States, and pests and diseases by country sets out which ones agencies regulate.