Dogwood, Flowering

This beautiful tree before you is the Flowering Dogwood, or Benthamidia florida (formerly Cornus florida), and was planted at the homes of two founding fathers, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. The wood of the Flowering Dogwood has been utilized for many different purposes such as golf clubs, pulleys, and shuttles. As the only tree-sized dogwood native to the midwest, you'll notice it is still relatively small, only reaching 40 feet in height. The bark is gray-brown and broken into small, scaly blocks that shed revealing a dark, inner bark which resembles chocolate chips. Leaves of the tree are rounded and pointed, pale green with thick veins. Most known for their flowers, the flowers that appear in April and May are large with four white bracts, each roughly 2 inches across. However, the actual flowers are tiny and clustered in the center of the massive white bracts. Following the flowers, the fruits produced are tiny and bright red when ripe, found in clusters just like the flowers.