What everyone calls a dogwood flower is four bracts. The actual flowers are the small green cluster at the center, and the white or pink display around them is modified leaf, which is why the show lasts for weeks rather than days. The common name most likely comes from the old English dag, a skewer or dagger, for wood hard enough to make them.

Cornus florida is the native, the tree that lights the understory of Southern woods in early April before the leaves come, and 'Suwanee Squat' is a low, spreading dwarf form for a small space. Cornus kousa blooms a month later, after leafing out, holds pointed bracts that age to pink, and follows with strange raspberry-like fruit; the Asian species also carries far better resistance to the anthracnose that has thinned wild dogwood populations across the East. Give either one high shade, acid soil with organic matter worked in, and no drought in the first years.