BUNCHBERRY IS BLOOMING

BUNCHBERRY, AKA DWARF CORNEL, FLOWER AND LEAVES...

...EDIBLE BERRIES RIPEN IN JULY.  NOTE THE VEINED, TOOTHLESS, OPPOSITE LEAVES

HUGE PATCH OF BUNCHBERRY ON BLOOM ROAD

Tuesday, 8:00 AM.  62 degrees F at the ferry dock, 58 on the back porch.  Wind WSW, light.  The humidity is 70%.  The sky is clearing and it should be a nice day.  The barometer is rising, now at 29.88". Mixed skies and highs in the mid-sixties to 70 degrees are predicted for the balance of the week, with chances of rain on the weekend.
   Bunchberry, AKA dwarf cornel, Cornus canadensis, in the Dogwood Family, is a circumpolar plant of damp coniferous forests. It is a woody sub-shrub that grows less than a foot tall and spreads by stolens into large mats.
   In the right habitat it makes a fine ground cover.  Its white flowers are much like the flowering dogwood of the South, but smaller, and  the edible red berries are very similar. Fall leaf color is purple to red.  Cornus species berries are edible; and one, Cornus mas, cornelean cherry, an Asiatic shrub, has berries very good for jams and jellies.
   There is a very large colony of bunchberry growing along a side road off of Highway K in Bayfield County.  This would be a good plant for more  nurseries to grow.
   This dwarf doogwood always reminds me of the wonderful flowering dogwood of the eastern and southern US, Cornus florida. It is almost a miniature of that beautiful tree.