Cornus nuttallii (USA)


W. Canada to W. U.S.A. as per WCSP;

British Columbia; California; Idaho; Oregon; Washington as per Catalogue of Life;

 

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Requesting to please ID this medium sized tree with white flowers captured in Yosemite National Park, San Francisco, USA in May 2013.

One of the Dogwoods. Probably Cornus florida.

May be Cornus nuttallii

are all these flowers from the same tree?
asking since they look as if they might not be?
do you recall?

No, all the photographs are not of the same tree. They belong to different trees in the park.

This has been identified as C. nuttallii in a FB group.

pics 06, 07, 10, and 11 are Cornus nutalli mountain dogwood.
pic 03 an d05 seem to be Cornus florida variety
not sure which one grows in wilderness areas of pacific coastal areas?
but nothing I impossible
and 62 not sure which one. most likely the wild  mountain dogwood.

Thanks … All the flower pics do have the same/very close to each other ‘time taken’. So mostly they are of the same tree. I generally do that. However, I cannot be sure after these many years.
The long shot, however, has been clicked at a another time.
I asked Uncle Google about C. florida in Yosemite, but he could not give me much info on C. florida in Yosemite.

Would like to know why do you consider pics 03 and 05 to be another species (C. florida)? Is it because of the number of petals.

Cornus for sure, but not sure of the species. I have also seen this dogwood in Yosemite

we see mountain dogwood in the pacific coast on the mountains and in the parks or wilderness areas but the controversy ids about the c. florida type of flowers
and the link I have given above says some times the inns or private gardens have planted the usual (i.e. eastern var. of dogwoods).
I have seen private yards homes in some redwood forests from before they were protected parks and those yard have non-native plants.  some people have started documenting them.
takes a long time to track them, but if one searches long enough you can find them.

I like Uncle google…..
The flower petals really BRACTS are 4, and shape is different.
look at the distal end of the petals, its rounded and even has a vague notch or what is reminiscent of a notch as in c. florida flower bracts/petals.
ANd the real flowers look different to me, I was not able to enlarge them well enough to describe them officially.
Another dogwood c. capitata has similar bract shape as c. florida,
finally if you had gone back in end of summer or fall the red fruits would have been red, in either … but different looking.but its leaves to me are different. though you don’t yet have many leaves.
But to me, you have two different types of flowers…. your major group is Mountain Dogwood. sorry, that’s as far as I can go today.
Unless you can find the whole tree picture of these flowers and we can point out that they arose from the same tree trunk, then we can make a theory that perhaps the bracts are variable in numbers and shape in this particular mountain dogwood.

And I thought them to petals!
Ok, so to order them in ascending order of time taken:
DSC05703 – C. florida
DSC05705 – C. florida
DSC05706 – C. florida (having 4 bracts and hence C. florida)
DSC05707 – C. nuttallii
DSC05711 – C. nuttallii
DSC05762 – C. nuttallii
Thank you Usha di for explaining it so well.
Also attaching cropped pics of the real flowers.
Attachments (4)

4 bracts is usual, but you will find some sites say 4 to 6 but I have never seen 6.
its the other points that seem to differentiate in my mind and the third TREE picture…. I cant name it beyond Flowering Dogwood. neither should you unless your last pictures are from that tree….



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