DWARF DOGWOOD OR BUNCH-BERRY (Cornus Canadensis)
By Charles Landes, Nature Guide.

The flowers of the forest are all shade loving but of these shade plants the dwarf dogwood is perhaps most widely distributed about Longmire. One finds them on every trail and nature has well-designed them to attract attention.

A slender, tough stem six or eight inches tall lifts them above the forest floor. This stem bears a whorl of two or three pairs of oval leaves at its summit. From the middle of the whole of bright green arises a cluster of inconspicuous flowers; surrounded by four beautiful white bracts.

These conspicous white bracts are taken as the flower petals by many but nature is practicing conservation in the dogwood and so supplies but one set in the center. Later the bract falls off and each flower in the head develops a bright red berry. The plant is just as beautiful in this stage with its bunch of bright scarlet berries surrounded by the leaf whorl as it is when in flower. Late in the season this hardy little plant is often found in bloom a second time.