Cloned and flowering dogwoods campaign

Greetings! Cloned dogwood ( Cornus florida 'Appalachian Spring') and native flowering dogwood ( Cornus florida ) are flowering across the country. Have you seen flower buds or open flowers on your dogwoods yet? The photo at right shows flowers or flower buds , but not open flowers . Read on to find out how to distinguish these two phenophases. Photo: GaylaLin via Wikimedia Commons

What you are reporting so far this year

Observers have reported on dogwoods at 121 sites so far this year. Is your site on the map below?

Sites reporting on flowering (represented by blue) and cloned (Appalachian Spring, represented by orange) dogwoods in 2019. Darker colors represent sites with more observations for that species.

The site submitting the most data so far this year is Mohonk Preserve ! Mohonk has submitted 1,074 records on flowering dogwood this year - thank you for your efforts! You can see their dark blue dot on the map above.

Dogwood observers started reporting flowers or flower buds in January, and the proportion of individual dogwood plants with flowers or flower buds continues to increase. There were some reports of breaking leaf buds in early January as well, though the proportion of dogwoods with breaking leaf buds started to really increase in March. Be careful when observing this stage that you don't confuse leaf buds with flower buds. Flower buds are generally round, while leaf buds are more pointed. If you need a refresher, see the photos on our Flowering Dogwood campaign page . If you think you may have mixed up leaf buds and flower buds, you can edit your observations .

For cloned dogwoods, observers started reporting flowers or flower buds and breaking leaf buds in March. It looks like the proportion of dogwoods with flowers and breaking leaf buds may have peaked in April, but we will check back in on these phenophases in our next message.

Some of you are also reporting open flowers on your dogwoods. The map below shows the sites where observers have reported open flowers.

Remember, for dogwoods, open flowers occurs when the small yellow flowers inside the large white bracts open to show their reproductive structures. When you start reporting open flowers, you should continue to also report "yes" for flowers or flower buds until all of the flowers have died or dried up. Photo: EnLorax via Wikimedia Commons

Earn your Flower Follower badge! You can earn this badge by observing dogwoods once a week for six separate weeks in the same year. See it on your Observation Deck . Thank you for your contributions to this important project!

Contact Erin Posthumus erin@usanpn.org 520-621-1670 bio

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