Dogwood - you'll know it by its bark :)

Red Osier Dogwood - Cornus sericea could use a bit of help on the identification side. At the moment only 60% of all verifiable dogwood observations in Manitoba have made it to Research Grade. Here's some strategies to help decide if you agree with an existing dogwood id in Manitoba.

First a bit of a quick sketch - red osier dogwood is a shrub - a woody plant that has many stems instead of a single trunk. It is generally no taller than an adult person and grows closely surrounded by other shrubs.

Mostly it has red bark. To get a feel for what the dogwood's red bark looks like, you can filter the Manitoba RG observations of red osier dogwood so that you are only looking at the leafless twigs - November to April.

Most other Manitoba shrubs don't have red bark-and the ones that do do not have those little gray warty spots. Only red osier dogwood has them and they are most distinct on the older branches. Red osier dogwood also never has thorns or spines.

You can see the red bark in the summer observations as well but leaves may obscure your view of the bark. That's ok as they have their own very distinctive character in the vein pattern, the strong lines that run outward from the center of the leaf. All dogwoods share the same veining pattern, where the nearly parallel secondary veins branch from the midvein and curve towards the tip as they near the leaf edge.

Red osier dogwood flowers mainly in early summer. The flowers are held above the leaves in a flat topped cluster. Each little flower has only 4 pointed petals. (When you are observing a dogwood in flower yourself, take some time to see if you can collect some observations for the insect experts as well )

The fruits start appearing in mid summer, green at first then ripening to white.

These few field characters will be enough help confirm most red osier dogwood ids through the seasons - red bark with grey warty protrusions, leaves with curving parallel veins, clusters of white 4 petal flowers and berries that are white when ripe.

Have fun!

Feel free to ping me if you want me to chime in on a dogwood id

ps check out these other organisms found living in and on red osier dogwood in Manitoba
leaf miners and leaf galls
other insects

Posted on February 26, 2023 01:41 AM by marykrieger