Gray Dogwood

gray dogwood
grey dogwood
gray-stemmed dogwood
panicled dogwood

More info for the terms: shrub, tree

Gray dogwood is a native, deciduous, rhizomatous shrub, usually from 4
to 10 feet (1.2-3.0 m) high.  It sometimes becomes a small tree up to 27
feet (8 m) high [17].  It has ascending stems and branches that often
form impenetrable dome-shaped clusters or thickets [4].  The leaves are
2.5 to 4.0 inches (6.0-10 cm) long, and the flowers are borne in open,
irregular cymes.  The individual fruits enclose a single stone and occur
in clusters [2,6,14].

Gray dogwood's main range is from Maine and southern Ontario; south
through New England and Pennyslvania; and west to Ohio, Indiana,
Michigan, Illinois, Missouri, Iowa, and Minnesota.  Its southern range
is from the Appalachian Mountains of Virginia to northern Arkansas.
Disjunct populations also occur in North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky,
North and South Dakota, and Nebraska [2,10,17,30].

More info for the terms: fire regime, seed

Postfire regeneration strategies of grey dogwood are not documented in
the literature.  It probably survives fire by sprouting from rhizomes.
It also produces an abundance of soil-stored seed [23], which may
germinate after fire.

FIRE REGIMES :
Find fire regime information for the plant communities in which this
species may occur by entering the species name in the FEIS home page under
"Find FIRE REGIMES".

More info on this topic.

More info for the term: phanerophyte

  
   Phanerophyte

More info for the term: forest

Gray dogwood grows on a variety of sites within its range.  It is found
in meadows, open woodlands, riparian zones, along roadsides, and forest
margins.  It grows best on rich, moist, well-drained soils, but will
also grow on mineral-rich limestone bedrock and rock outcroppings.  In
Appalachian oak-hickory forests, it usually occurs on open ridgetops and
south- and west-facing slopes [1,10,16].

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This species is known to occur in association with the following cover types (as classified by the Society of American Foresters):

    17  Pin cherry
    19  Gray birch - red maple
    20  White pine - northern red oak - red maple
    21  Eastern white pine
    22  White pine - hemlock
    23  Eastern hemlock
    24  Hemlock - yellow birch
    25  Sugar maple - beech - yellow birch
    26  Sugar maple - basswood
    27  Sugar maple
    28  Black cherry - maple
    30  Red spruce - yellow birch
    31  Red spruce - sugar maple - beech
    32  Red spruce
    33  Red spruce - balsam fir
    34  Red spruce - Fraser fir
    35  Paper birch - red spruce - balsam fir
    37  Northern white-cedar
    39  Black ash - American elm - red maple
    42  Bur oak
    43  Bear oak
    44  Chestnut oak
    52  White oak - black oak - northern red oak
    53  White oak
    55  Northern red oak
    57  Yellow-poplar
    58  Yellow-poplar - eastern hemlock
    59  Yellow-poplar - white oak - northern red oak
    60  Beech - sugar maple
    62  Silver maple - American elm
    64  Sassafras - persimmon
   107  White spruce
   108  Red maple
   110  Black oak

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This species is known to occur in the following ecosystem types (as named by the U.S. Forest Service in their Forest and Range Ecosystem [FRES] Type classification):

   FRES10  White - red - jack pine
   FRES11  Spruce - fir
   FRES15  Oak - hickory
   FRES17  Elm - ash - cottonwood
   FRES18  Maple - beech - birch
   FRES19  Aspen - birch

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This species is known to occur in association with the following plant community types (as classified by Küchler 1964):

More info for the term: forest

   K093  Great Lakes spruce - fir forest
   K095  Great Lakes pine forest
   K096  Northeastern spruce - fir forest
   K099  Maple - basswood forest
   K100  Oak - hickory forest
   K102  Beech - maple forest
   K101  Elm - ash forest
   K103  Mixed mesophytic forest
   K104  Appalachian oak forest
   K106  Northern hardwoods
   K108  Northern hardwoods - spruce forest
   K110  Northeastern oak - pine forest

More info for the term: duff

Aboveground plant parts are often killed by fire [25,26].  The
underground rhizomes probably survive all but severe fires that remove
duff and heat the upper soil for extended periods of time.

More info for the term: cover

In Missouri, Ohio, and Illinois, gray dogwood is one of the most
important forage plants for white-tailed deer [5,19,24].  The seeds and
buds are a favorite food for ring-necked pheasant and northern bobwhite
in southern Michigan [28].

Gray dogwood thickets provide cover for a variety of birds and mammals
[2,6,14].

More info for the term: shrubs

Gray dogwood is one of the dominant shrubs in the oak-hickory
(Quercus-Carya) forests of the northeastern United States.  Common
codominants include maple-leaved viburnum (Viburnum acerifolium) and
Virginia creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia).  Other common associates
of gray dogwood include American hazel (Corylus americana), beaked
hazelnut (C. cornuta), chokecherry (Prunus virginiana), smooth sumac
(Rhus glabra), and red raspberry (Rubus idaeus) [3,23,26].

More info for the terms: shrub, tree

Tree, Shrub

     AR  CT  DE  IL  IN  IA  KY  ME  MD  MA
     MI  MN  MO  NE  NH  NJ  NY  NC  ND  OH
     OK  PA  RI  SC  SD  TN  VT  VA  WV  WI
     MB  ON  PQ

Gray dogwood has been planted for ornamental purposes because of its
showy flowers, fruits, and attractive fall coloring [2].

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Gray dogwood flowers from May through July, with fruits maturing from
August through October [4,14].  Leaves emerge in early April and abscise
in late October [13].

More info for the terms: cover, frequency, shrubs

Percent cover of native shrubs, including gray dogwood, decreased
following fire in a bur oak (Quercus macrocarpa) savanna in east-central
Minnesota [26].

In a study of postfire plant response in four plant communities in
central New York, gray dogwood frequency on 17 burned plots averaged 62
percent at postfire year 1.  Frequency on unburned plots was 62 percent [25].

The Research Paper by Bowles and others 2007 provides information on
postfire responses of several plant species, including gray dogwood,
that was not available when this species review was originally written.

More info for the terms: ground residual colonizer, rhizome, shrub

   Rhizomatous shrub, rhizome in soil
   Ground residual colonizer (on-site, initial community)
   Initial-offsite colonizer (off-site, initial community)

More info for the term: seed

Gray dogwood reproduces both sexually and asexually.  It begins
producing seed at about 4 to 5 years of age and produces an abundant
amount of seed every year.  Gray dogwood reproduces vegetatively by
sprouting from underground rhizomes [22,29].

More info on this topic.

More info for the term: forest

Facultative Seral Species

Gray dogwood is an early to mid-seral species [12,20].  It is most
common in understories of mixed, open forests and grows best in moderate
to full sunlight [18].  In southwestern Wisconsin, aboveground growth
rates of gray dogwood were greater in open habitats than in forest
understories [12].

Cornus foemina ssp. racemosa

The currently accepted scientific name of gray dogwood is Cornus
racemosa Lam. [16]. Some authorities consider C. racemosa a subspecies
of Cornus foemina [8,10]. Little [17], however, considers it a distinct
species.

Gray dogwood is well adapted for revegetating disturbed sites.  It is
easily established by direct seedling and grows rapidly [11,29].  It has
been successfully planted for revegetating highway corridors in Wisconsin
and coal mine spoils in the eastern United States [11,28,29].

Cornus racemosa Lam. Encyc. 2: 116. 1786
Cornits candidissima Marsh. Arbust. 35. 1785. Not C. candidissima Mill. 1768.
Cornus citrifolia Hort. ; Lam. Encyc. 2: 116, as syn. 1786. Not C. citrifolia Weston, 1770.
Cornus paniculaia L'Her. Cornus 9. 1788.
Cornus albida Ehrh. Beitr. 4: 16. 1789.
Cornus paniculaia albida Pursh, Fl. Am. Sept. 109. 1814.
Cornus paniculaia radiata Pursh, Fl. Am. Sept. 109. 1814.
Cornus comosa Raf. Alsog. 63. 1838.
Cornus oblongata Hort.; Dippel, Handb. Laubh. 3: 254, as syn. 1893.
Cornus gracilis Koehne, Mitt. Deuts. Dendr. Ges. 12: 36. 1903.
Svida candidissima Small, Fl. SE. U. S. 853. 1903.
Svida foemina Rydb. Brittonia 1: 94. 1931. Doubtfully C. foemina Mill. 1768.
Svida racemosa Moldenke, Boissiera 7: 3. 1943.
Shrubs, often forming dense thickets by proliferation from the roots; branchlets red, becoming light grey, the pith usually brown but often white; leaf-blades commonly 4—8 cm. long, 1-4 cm. broad, lanceolate to elliptic, acuminate to an obtuse tip, cuneate at the base, on plants growing in the open often subcoriaceous and in late summer suffused with crimson, sparsely strigillose on both surfaces, the under surface paler and bearing papillae barely discernible through a hand magnifier; veins usually 3 on either side of the midrib and about equally spaced along it; petioles about 5 mm. long; inflorescence 2.5-5 cm. across, more or less thyrsoidal, the primary branches commonly opposite on a central axis, essentially glabrous, becoming bright red; pedicels mostly 1-4 mm. long; hypanthium grey-strigillose; sepals 0.5 mm. long; petals 3 mm. long; style 2-2.5 mm. long; drupes at first lead-colored, becoming white, about 5 mm. in diameter, the endocarp 4 mm. broad, usually slightly shorter than broad, slightly compressed, more or less oblique, 1or 2-seeded.
Type locality: "Jardin du Roi," Paris.
Distribution: Maine to Minnesota, south to Florida, Alabama, Kentucky, Missouri, and northwestern Arkansas.

Cornus racemosa, the northern swamp dogwood, gray dogwood, or panicle dogwood, is a shrubby plant native to southeastern Canada and the northeastern United States. It is a member of the dogwood genus Cornus and the family Cornaceae.