The genus Cornus is also known as the dogwoods, with over fifty species. Most species have opposite leaves. The fruit of all species is a drupe with one or two seeds. Flowers have four parts.
Cornus has been divided into various subgenera, with numbers ranging from four to nine or more. Four subgenera are enumerated here:
- With semi-showy flower clusters, usually white or whitish, in cymes, fruit blue to white:
- Mesomora, with alternate leaves
- Svida, with opposite leaves
- With inconspicuous flower clusters, usually greenish, surrounded by showy petal-like bracts, fruit usually red:
- Chamaeperi- clymenum, subshrubs growing from woody stolons
- Cynoxylon, shrubs and trees, including the flowering dogwood, Cornus florida
Most of the species in the Cynoxylon group are small trees used as ornamentals. One, the Cornelian cherry, has edible fruit.
Eastern North American species of Cornus:
For a treatment of Asian dogwoods, see:
http://hua.huh.harvard.edu/china/mss/volume14/Cornaceae-AGH_coauthoring.htm
Cornus is also the name of a commune in the Aveyron département, in FranceMesomora
Svida (Swida)
Chamaepericlymenum
Cynoxylon
dogwood, Cornus florida, in bloom