Flowering dogwood, Cornus florida, is pretty common across a great swath of eastern North America, but is rare here in Austin. There are (were) tons of them out in the Lost Pines area of Bastrop, but I'm now wondering how they survived the fires. But that must be the western edge of their range. Rough-leaf dogwood is much more common to this area.
However, someone planted a few flowering dogwoods on the University of Texas campus, and every year I love to see them bloom. Reminds me of growing up back east. This is really one of our most lovely native blooming trees, with its layers of bright white flowers. In Bastrop, they would positively light up the deep dark understory of the piney forest...
I suspect the fires were not that detrimental to dogwoods. Pine Woods are set on fire here every year and the dogwoods go right on.
ReplyDeleteThey do like an acid soil like that under pines, where they grow easily from seed.
When I first moved to (east) Texas from California, the dogwoods kept me going. They were one of my grandmother's favorites and seeing their blooms made her seem closer. Will have to get by campus soon to see these.
ReplyDeleteDogwoods are my favorite. I worked on a campus with Cornus kousa planted everywhere and my heart swelled every time I saw one in bloom.
ReplyDelete