Both Cornus
Cornus florida vs Cornus nuttallii
These two are not on this page because a keyword tool suggested them. They are here because our own identification model genuinely mistook one for the other, on real photographs, 4 times. We publish the rate, and then we tell you what actually separates them.
Side by sidefigs. a and b
Cornus florida
flowering dogwood
Cornus nuttallii
Pacific Dogwood
How often our model gets it wrong measured, not estimated
| When the plant was | The model said | How often |
|---|---|---|
| Cornus nuttallii | Cornus florida | 4 of 20 (20%) |
Measured on 38,949 openly licensed, research-grade photographs. Full method and dataset.
What actually separates themon the record
| Family | Both Cornaceae. The family does not separate them. |
|---|---|
| Genus | Both Cornus. Congeners, which is why this is hard. |
| Flowering | Peaks in May versus May. Timing does not separate them. (n = 3,048 and 915.) |
What we do not have yet: the diagnostic morphological character that a botanist would key on, from a source we can cite. We are not going to invent one. Until we have it, this page tells you the two are genuinely confusable, how often, and what the taxonomy and the flowering data do and do not settle.