Kousa dogwood trees have been blossoming this week. Although native to East Asia, the trees are fairly common here and some appear to have naturalized themselves in our woods. They are also known as Chinese dogwood, Japanese dogwood, and Korean dogwood.
What appear to be four white petals are actually four bracts spreading from below clusters of often-unnoticed yellow-green flowers. (In botany, a bract is a specialized leaf, usually associated with protecting a reproductive structure such as a flower.)
Kousa dogwoods (Cornus kousa) can be distinguished from our native flowering dogwoods (Cornus florida) by the Kousa’s pointed, rather than rounded, flower bracts. One explanation of the origin of the word “dogwood” is that the very hard wood was used to make “dogs” or “doggerwood” – Old English terms for a meat skewer.
(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on May 13, 2023.)