white flags

tiny flags of white

brighten the understory

Flowering Dogwood

© 2015 Richard Havenga

Photo Location:

Cascade Township, Kent County, Michigan

Dogwood Spring

after long winter

we wait and anticipate

white Dogwood blossoms

©  2014  Richard Havenga

Learn much more about Dogwoods at: "The Understory of Dogwoods" April 25, 2012.

Flowering Dogwood - Cornus florida

Photo Location:  Ada, Michigan

Photo Haiku - Tree Series 2

backlit by the sun
red samaras hang in pairs
wings for future flight

notches of red, stain

Dogwood's purity of white

a blue sky morning

new needles clustered

bursting buds of Tamarack

thriving in the bog

soft, pink-white petals

attracting bees to anthers

Sand Cherry blossoms

Also view: "Photo Haiku - Tree Series

The Understory of Dogwoods

Those recent 50 mph winds here in Grand Rapids ripped through the Redbuds and spattered their flowers over the ground. Just as these magnificent pink blossoms (see: Redbuds Revisited) are fading and falling, the Flowering Dogwoods are next to enter the Spring spotlight.

You may be fortunate to have one in your landscape, or you may see them arching from the edge of the woods as you drive the country roads.

The native Dogwood (Cornus florida) lives as an understory tree, growing between the lower shrubs and the upper tree canopy...

                                        ...growing slowly in these open, but shady areas.

It grows 15' - 30' in height, is short-trunked, dividing low, with slender  spreading branches forming a flat-topped crown.

In SW Michigan, the Flowering Dogwood reaches its northern limit in our Grand River Valley. Found in Oak and Beech-Maple forests.

These spectacular white blossoms you are viewing are not blossoms!

Botanical truth: these are four, white notched bracts that resemble petals.

That cherry-colored notch on each bract used to be a bud scale; a protective winter covering for the future flower.