Cornus sericeaL.

red osier dogwood

WFO wfo-0000924839 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h

Cornus sericea, photographed by Erin Springinotic
fig. a Erin Springinotic, CC0 1.0 / 2022-06-12 / obs. 205579722
Cornus sericea, photographed by Eric Lamb
fig. b Eric Lamb, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 204622123
Cornus sericea, photographed by Louis Imbeau
fig. c Louis Imbeau, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 205341063
Cornus sericea, photographed by Shane Johnson
fig. d Shane Johnson, CC0 1.0 / obs. 204635501
Cornus sericea, photographed by Shane Johnson
fig. e Shane Johnson, CC0 1.0 / obs. 204671437
Cornus sericea, photographed by Mary Krieger
fig. f Mary Krieger, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 205031806
Cornus sericea, photographed by Carol Ann Vermeer
fig. g Carol Ann Vermeer, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 205053621
Cornus sericea, photographed by Syd Cannings
fig. h Syd Cannings, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 204650922

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Confused withby our own model

These are not lookalikes we guessed at. Each one is a species our identification model genuinely mistook for this plant, and how many times. The error rate is published.

Flowering n = 4,097 observations

Peak flowering in Jun, from 4,097 community-annotated observations worldwide. This is a global aggregate, not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres, and citizen-science records cluster near cities, at weekends, and in spring. Where a species has fewer than 30 annotated records we do not draw this chart at all.

Also published as 72 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Cornus alba f. azurea (Lepage) B.Boivin
  • Cornus alba f. baileyi (J.M.Coult. & W.H.Evans) Morley
  • Cornus alba subsp. baileyi (J.M.Coult. & W.H.Evans) Wangerin
  • Cornus alba subsp. stolonifera (Michx.) Wangerin
  • Cornus alba var. angustipetala Wolf
  • Cornus alba var. baileyi (J.M.Coult. & W.H.Evans) B.Boivin
  • Cornus alba var. behnschi Schelle
  • Cornus alba var. californica (C.A.Mey.) B.Boivin
  • Cornus alba var. coloradensis Koehne
  • Cornus alba var. elata Koehne
  • Cornus alba var. elongata Koehne
  • Cornus alba var. flaviramea Späth ex Koehne
  • Cornus alba var. interior (Rydb.) B.Boivin
  • Cornus alba var. nitida Koehne
  • Cornus alba var. splendens Demcker
  • Cornus baileyi J.M.Coult. & W.H.Evans
  • Cornus californica C.A.Mey.
  • Cornus californica var. nevadensis Jeps.
  • Cornus candissima Bisch.
  • Cornus instolonea A.Nelson
  • Cornus interior (Rydb.) N.Petersen
  • Cornus nelsonii Rose
  • Cornus pubescens Torr.
  • Cornus pubescens var. californica (C.A.Mey.) J.M.Coult. & W.H.Evans

and 48 more.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice, no toxicity claim and no native range, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.