Description: Deciduous tree with dense, conical or rounded crown of often horizontal branches and with beautiful white flower clusters.

Height: 15 m, rarely 25-30m in wild.

Diameter: 0.3 m, rarely larger.

Leaves: opposite; 6-11 cm long, 3-7 cm wide. Elliptical, edges slightly wavy, with 5-6 long, curved veins on each side of midvein. Shiny green and nearly hairless above, paler with woolly hairs beneath; turning orange and red in autumn. Petiole 0.5-1.5 cm.

Bark: reddish-brown, thin, smooth or scaly.

Twigs: slender, light green and minutely downy when young, becoming dark red or blackish.

Flowers: 6mm wide; with four greenish-yellow petals; many crowded together in a head 2.5cm wide; bordered by usually six (sometimes four to seven) large, elliptical, short-pointed, cream or white, later tinged pinkish, petal-like bracts 4-6 cm long, altogether forming a huge ”flower• 10-15 cm wide; in spring and early summer, often again in late summer or early autumn.

Fruit: 12mm long, elliptical, shiny red or orange drupes; thin, mealy, bitter pulp; stone containing one or two seeds; many crowded together in head 4cm across; maturing in autumn.

Habitat: Moist soils in mountains in understory of coniferous forests. California plant communities Yellow Pine Forest (m14), Red Fir Forest (m15) and Lodgepole Pine Forest (m16).

Range: SW British Columbia south to W Oregon and in mountains to S California; 750 to 1800 m in the Sierra, lower further north.

Pacific Dogwood is one of the most handsome native trees on the Pacific coast, with very showy flowers and fruit. It is unusual for a hardwood in that it not only grows but prospers and flowers in the shade of large conifers, being able to photosynthesise down to about a third of full sunlight. Despite the bitterness of the berry-like fruits several birds are regularly attracted to the tree, in particular, the fruits are the favorite autumn food of band-tailed pigeons. Some Northwest Indians boiled the bark to make a laxative, and the tannin rich bark was used by some frontiersmen in place of quinine to cure malaria.

Introduced to the UK in 1835. The species is not especially happy in the UK climate, being comparatively short-lived; often collapsing while apparently in full vigour at twenty years or so. However, it flowers quite young. In UK conditions, the hybrid between Cornus nuttallii and Cornus florida, usually sold as the cultivar Cornus 'Eddie's White Wonder' is supposed to be a lot more reliable. Since flowering dogwood is such a distinctive component of the riparian forests of the Sierra Nevada, we have broken our usual rule banning garden hybrids and cultivars in this one case.

Information: Audubon (1980), biol445 (1996)

Sources: (C. nuttallii) Chris Pattison, Nurseryman,
(C. 'Eddie's White Wonder') The Garden House, Buckland Monachorum, Devon.

Purchased: (C. nuttallii) May 1998, two pot-grown, single-stemmed plants at about 1m.
(C. 'Eddie's White Wonder') May 1998, a single (expensive !) relatively bushy plant at about 1m.

Planted: The hybrid was planted (early September 1998) in a sheltered spot in the walled garden whilst the species were kept in pots so that they may be kept well-sheltered over the first winter. This misfired as they were set back somewhat by drought, and one subsequently died, though inspection suggests that vine weevil was the final culprit. The survivor was planted in the garden of Manor Cottage. In both cases, it is the intention to propagate a few extra specimens for "insurance" before committing them to the (rather more exposed) main arboretum.

Notes: We purchased three trees, sight unseen, by mail order from Mallet Court Nurseries in Somerset in 1993, who didn't take the trouble to specify a size for the plants in their catalogue. They turned out to be barely 0.3m high and nothing more than (very expensive) bare-rooted twigs - far too small to plant out. They were carefully potted and kept sheltered, but only one managed bud burst in the spring, and it soon succumbed. More than half of the trees (of a variety of species) we bought from this supplier died very quickly, and none were the sort of size we expected from the price paid. We have used many suppliers since starting our garden, all of whom have been very good, with this one exception who were the most expensive, turned out to be appalling, and were completely unapologetic about it.

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