''Cornus racemosa'', the northern swamp dogwood, gray dogwood, or panicle dogwood, is a

shrub A shrub or bush is a small to medium-sized perennial woody plant. Unlike herbaceous plants, shrubs have persistent woody stems above the ground. Shrubs can be either deciduous or evergreen. They are distinguished from trees by their multiple ...

by plant native to southeastern

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

and the

northeastern United States The Northeastern United States (also referred to as the Northeast, the East Coast, or the American Northeast) is List of regions of the United States, census regions United States Census Bureau. Located on the East Coast of the United States, ...

. It is a member of the dogwood genus '' Cornus'' and the

family Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...

Cornaceae The Cornaceae are a cosmopolitan family of flowering plants in the order Cornales. The family contains approximately 85 species in two genera, '' Alangium'' and '' Cornus''. They are mostly trees and shrubs, which may be deciduous or evergreen, ...

Description

Gray dogwood grows high, rarely to . It often sends up suckers from underground

rhizome In botany and dendrology, a rhizome ( ) is a modified subterranean plant stem that sends out roots and Shoot (botany), shoots from its Node (botany), nodes. Rhizomes are also called creeping rootstalks or just rootstalks. Rhizomes develop from ...

s, forming

thicket A thicket is a very dense stand of trees or tall shrubs, often dominated by only one or a few species, to the exclusion of all others. They may be formed by species that shed large numbers of highly viable seeds that are able to germinate in th ...

s. Its bark is gray and its twigs have white

pith Pith, or medulla, is a tissue in the stems of vascular plants. Pith is composed of soft, spongy parenchyma cells, which in some cases can store starch. In eudicotyledons, pith is located in the center of the stem. In monocotyledons, it ex ...

. The leaves are long and wide, and typically have 3 or 4 pairs of lateral veins, fewer than other dogwood species. The plant grows upright with a rounded habit, oppositely arranged leaves, and terminally born flowers. The white flowers are small, with four

petal Petals are modified leaves that form an inner whorl surrounding the reproductive parts of flowers. They are often brightly coloured or unusually shaped to attract pollinators. All of the petals of a flower are collectively known as the ''corol ...

s long, and clustered together in rounded clusters wide called diachasial cymes, produced sometime between May and July. After flowering, green fruits (

drupe In botany, a drupe (or stone fruit) is a type of fruit in which an outer fleshy part (exocarp, or skin, and mesocarp, or flesh) surrounds a single shell (the ''pip'' (UK), ''pit'' (US), ''stone'', or ''pyrena'') of hardened endocarp with a seed ...

s) are produced, and they ripen and turn white from August to October. The flowers and fruit are attached to the plant by bright red pedicels. Many species of birds feed on the fruits. Old branches grow slowly, while new stems are fast growing. In the fall the foliage can take on a reddish or purplish color, though it is not overly showy from a distance.

Classification

''Cornus racemosa'' has been variably treated as a subspecies of ''Cornus foemina'' Mill., with which it overlaps. It occasionally hybridizes with ''

Cornus amomum ''Cornus amomum'', the silky dogwood, is a species of dogwood native to the southern Ontario and eastern United States, from Michigan and Vermont south to Alabama and Florida. Other names include red willow, silky cornel, kinnikinnick, and squawb ...

'' (silky dogwood), the products of which are named ''Cornus'' × ''arnoldiana''.

References

External links

''Cornus racemosa'' description with pictures
*
Brief description and pictures
{{Taxonbar, from=Q1134291 racemosa Flora of Eastern Canada Flora of the Northeastern United States Flora of the United States Trees of Northern America Taxa named by Jean-Baptiste Lamarck