Are you seeing flower buds on your dogwoods?

Did you know you have a very important plant in your yard? Your observations on cloned dogwood (Cornus florida ‘Appalachian Spring’) and native flowering dogwood (Cornus florida) contribute to a long term project seeking to understand the impact of local environmental conditions on plants across the country. 

As part of the Dogwood Genome Project, researchers at universities in the southeastern US will use your observations to identify variation in the phenology of flowering dogwood varieties and investigate the genes that may be influencing the timing of leaf-out, flowering, and leaf-fall.

Some of you have already started to see flower buds appearing on your trees. Keep watching your trees for flower buds and breaking leaf buds. Below, we break down how to tell the difference between the two. 

For more information, please select: Nature’s Notebook