It is native from Maine to southern Ontario to Illinois to Kansas south to Florida, Texas and Mexico. It is a plant with four-season character – showy spring flowers, summer and fall foliage, fall fruit and winter branching habit. We love it too, but the world of dogwood trees is so much greater than just that one type. This Genus consists of 30-60 mostly woody plants some of which grow into small trees. Uses Flowering dogwood has hard, close-grained wood. It is also used in form of bath. Seedlings with a root ball are preferred over bareroot transplants; plants at the beginning of the third growing season are generally best suited for transplanting . Other facts. Bark and root infusion is used for treating childhood diseases such as worms and measles. The white flowering dogwood (Cornus florida) is a common deciduous tree occurring throughout the eastern half of the United States. When you think “dogwood” it’s likely the image that comes to mind is Cornus florida, the famed spring flowering tree. It is the state tree of Virginia and state flower of North Carolina. Song and game birds eat the berries and deer browse the twigs. Flowering dogwood roots readily from cuttings taken in June or immediately after the plants bloom. Diminutive is a good way to describe the flowering dogwood, a tree that tops out at 40 to 50 feet in height but averages between 20 and 30 feet, with a … It is little used in modern herbalism. Other species can be quite different; for example, the Blackfruit Cornel, native to California, has small yellow-green blooms and … Noteworthy Characteristics. The state tree of Virginia, the Flowering Dogwood has conspicuous white to light yellow flowers that offer magnificent blooms in spring. The Dogwood tree is an extremely common ornamental plant, dogwood trees offer beautiful flowers and unique fruits. The powdered bark of the trunk was reportedly used in toothpaste and black ink, and as an aspirin-like substance. Flowering dogwood (C. florida) grows along wooded slopes, ravines, along bluffs, upland ridges, and old fields that are turning back into woods; it is less common on glades, valleys, and low ground; it prefers well-drained, acid-based soils and shady locations. Trees can be used … A red dye can be made from the bark of the roots. Boil dogwood bark in water and use the extract to ease sore and painful muscles. Flowering dogwood has been named the state tree of both Virginia and Missouri, and the state flower of North Carolina. The flowering dogwood (Cornus florida) shows off its "flowers" in spring, but those blooms are actually bracts, a type of leaf (see Reference 1). Flowering dogwood was employed medicinally by a number of native North American Indian tribes who valued it especially for its astringent and antiperiodic properties[257]. References: The dried root-bark is antiperiodic, astringent, diaphoretic, mildly stimulant and tonic[4, 46, 61, 95, 257]. Cornus florida, commonly known as flowering dogwood, is a small deciduous tree that typically grows 15-30’ tall with a low-branching, broadly-pyramidal but somewhat flat-topped habit.It arguably may be the most beautiful of the native American flowering trees. Here are three varieties that you may not know, each with something distinctive from flower size to flower color to amazing foliage. In addition to their popularity as landscape plantings, these native North American trees have a variety of uses and even legendary significance. Only terminal shoot tips trimmed to about 8 cm (3 in) in length and retaining two to four leaves should be used. The maximum lifespan of American Dogwood is about 80 years. Flowering Dogwood (Photo By: Line1 / Wikimedia Commons) Dogwood trees are trees in the Genus: Cornus. 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