Flowering White Dogwood Poster

"Flowering White Dogwood" by Catherine Sherman. The flowering dogwood creates a dramatic display when it blooms in the spring. Cornus florida, the flowering dogwood, is a species of flowering plant 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, according to Wikipedia. The tree is commonly planted as an ornamental in residential and public areas because of its showy bracts and interesting bark structure. The flowers are individually small and inconspicuous, with four greenish-yellow bracts 4 mm (0.16 in) long. Around 20 flowers are produced in a dense, rounded, umbel-shaped inflorescence, or flower-head, 1–2 cm (0.39–0.79 in) in diameter. The flower-head is surrounded by four conspicuous large white, pink or red "petals" (actually bracts), each bract 3 cm (1.2 in) long and 2.5 cm (0.98 in) broad, rounded, and often with a distinct notch at the apex. The flowers are hermaphroditic ("perfect flowers") . The fruit is an important food source for dozens of species of birds, which then distribute the seeds.