The flowers occur in a small bunch surrounded by four large, white, involucral bracts that give the tree the appearance of bearing large white flowers. The name 'Florida' alludes to this effect, and the name 'Cornus,' from cornu, 'a horn,' refers to the density of the wood. It flowers so punctually in the third week in May that it sets the time for the Indians' corn-planting.

Thanks for the info PJ. It's very interesting.

But why the alternate name 'Nature's mistake'? I did a google search and while all the sources listed the common names of flowering dogwood including 'Nature's mistake' the 'why' could not be found even though the word 'why' was put into the search.

Did they bloom at the wrong time causing the planting of corn to be off like the mesquite tree occasionally leafs out before the last freeze of the year?

We humans love a mystery so here's another one to solve.

The only reference with any parenthetical meaning I could find said, "Some think the bracts are aberrant petals" (see below).

Lin

Here is a link that might be useful: Florida Ethnobotany

I wrote Mike Arnold at A&M but so far all I've seen is the same reference Lin provided. If bracts that look like petals is all it is, then C. florida just beat some other plants to the punch for a cool common name! :-)

So 'nature's mistake' of making bracts look like flower petals is our delight!

It might also help the bees and butterflies find them -- so not a mistake after all.

Just goes to show you what I know. I thought a LOT of plants had colored bracts instead of flowers!I didn't know Dog wood was called "Nature's Mistake" so I was kind of confused to what the post was about too. Didn't stop me from winging it with and answer tho! PJ

Just off the top of my head, pjtexgirl, isn't poinsettia another example? I think there are plenty of other of examples, too.

I believe bougainvillea is another example of bracts looking like flower heads.

PJ, at first I was also confused about the question and thought of answering it like you did, but didn't have the other interesting information about Flowering dogwood (Cornus florida) as you gave. Thanks for 'winging it' with your reply. We learned some stuff!

Thought I'd look a while to see if I could find anything different. My only thought is that perhaps it's a "mistake" for the blooms to appear before the leaves, but then again, there are plenty of plants that do that too: forsythias, many fruits, etc.

When I started getting more hits for transexuals than horticulture sites, I decided my time might be better spent on some other project! We may never know...

I also found a Wiki article that stated that the flowers are bisexual. Think that may be the reason?

Pam

Here is a link that might be useful: Horticulture/Cornus florida

I thought the same thing Pam, but as I did more research I found there are alot of flowers that are bisexual, so I don't think that's the reason either. I'm curious now too. I hope bradmm gets an answer from Mike Arnold and will let us know what he says. Hint, hint.

deb,

His response was "Interesting."

grrrrrrr

The saga continues....

I'll make another wild guess. Maybe "flowers" that are actually bracts are old news to folks who have exposure to many different plants from many different areas unlike our older plant enthusiasts of yesterday. He may never have seen a Poinsettia or Bouganvilla or other common plants we have now. If you don't like that I'll make up something else! PJ