Kousa dogwood

Appalachian-Blue Ridge forests

Arizona Mountains forests

Atlantic coastal pine barrens

Blue Mountains forests

Central Pacific Northwest coastal forests

Central-Southern Cascades Forests

Colorado Rockies forests

A medium-to-large native shade tree of central and eastern North America, reaching 50 to 80 feet with an ovate-rounded crown and large, asymmetric heart-shaped leaves. In June it carries pale-yellow, intensely fragrant flowers on pendulous cymes - each cluster hung from a distinctive strap-like leafy bract - that ripen into pea-sized nutlets. The fragrant June bloom is a premier nectar source: Missouri Botanical Garden lists it as attracting bees and butterflies, and the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center flags it as having special value to both native and honey bees.

Similar plants

Browse lateral options with similar roles, light needs, size, or native-range overlap; these are not filtered for a better climate fit.

Tilia americana

American basswood

The only native U.S. holly with both spiny green leaves and bright red berries - an upright, pyramidal, broadleaf evergreen tree that slowly matures to 15 to 30 feet in cultivation (to 50 feet in the wild). Thick, leathery, deep green leaves bear spiny marginal teeth, and pollinated female trees carry showy red-to-orange drupes that ripen in fall and persist through winter as bird food. This is the classic "Christmas holly" of wreaths and decorations.

A tough, medium-sized native tree of the eastern and midwestern United States, grown as much for its showy edible orange fruit as for its distinctive thick, dark gray bark broken into rectangular blocks. Small urn-shaped white-to-greenish-yellow flowers open in May and June, and the sweet fruit ripens after frost. Largely dioecious - a female tree needs a male pollinizer nearby to set fruit - and notably drought- and walnut-tolerant once established.

The largest native cherry of eastern North America - a medium-to-large deciduous shade tree that hangs elongated racemes of small white flowers in spring, then ripens drooping strings of pea-sized fruit from red to near-black in late summer. The fragrant white bloom feeds bees while the fruit is eaten by 33 species of birds and many mammals; it is also a workhorse larval host, supporting the Eastern Tiger Swallowtail and a string of giant silk and sphinx moths. Every part except the ripe fruit is cyanide-bearing and toxic.

Common hawthorn is a deciduous, thorny small tree or large shrub native to Europe, northwestern Africa, and western Asia, where it has been used for centuries as stock-proof hedging and valued for its May blossom and autumn haws. In the garden it earns its keep as a tough wildlife powerhouse - a single mature tree can support hundreds of invertebrate species, and the haw crop sustains thrushes and waxwings through winter (Wikipedia). The honest catch is the thorns: they are genuinely sharp (up to 0.5 inches), making pruning painful and placing it off-limits near paths and play areas; the tree is also considered invasive in parts of the Pacific Northwest, Australia, and New Zealand where it outcompetes native scrub.

Date plum (Diospyros lotus) is a deciduous tree native from northeastern and south-central Turkey east through Iran, the Himalayas, and Central Asia to China and Korea, with a history of cultivation reaching back to antiquity - possibly the "lotus" of Homer's Odyssey. In gardens it offers glossy foliage, small greenish-cream flowers in summer, and ornamental fruit ripening to yellow then blue-black. The honest catch is twofold: the tree is dioecious, so a male is needed near a female for a proper seeded crop (a lone female sets only sparse, often seedless fruit), and the fruit is intensely astringent until fully ripe or frost-softened, so it is messy and unpalatable if picked early.

Educator packet

Plant packet

Kousa dogwood educator packet

Kousa dogwood is a small deciduous tree native to Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and China, grown for its long-lasting late-spring flower display - four pointed white bracts surrounding inconspicuous yellow-green flowers - followed by scarlet strawberry-like compound fruits in late summer. It blooms about a month later than the American flowering dogwood and is strongly resistant to dogwood anthracnose disease (Discula destructiva), making it the safer ornamental choice in most gardens. The honest catch is its soil chemistry demand: it requires acidic, well-drained soil and will develop iron chlorosis and fail to thrive in alkaline or waterlogged conditions - and the strawberry-sized fruits that drop in autumn are sticky and messy on paving.

Scientific name

Cornus kousa

Plant type

tree

Hardiness

5a-8b

Light

full-sun, part-sun

Moisture

moderate

Spacing

216 inches

Classroom prompts

- Which plant traits are observations, and which are care recommendations?

- How would this plant fit change if the garden location moved warmer, colder, wetter, or drier?

- Which source-backed facts would you cite in a lesson handout?

Use the Sources & citations section below for page citation styles and the field-level source list.

Sources & citations

Cite this page

For lesson plans, articles, or research that uses this page. Use the source cards below to explore the references that informed this record.

Plotwright. (2026, May 17). Kousa dogwood (Cornus kousa). Retrieved 2026, August 20, from https://plotwright.com/plants/cornus-kousa

Sources used for this record

This record is compiled from the sources below.

RHS Find a Plant

Botanical research database

GBIF

Botanical research database

Wikipedia (ecoregion articles)

Botanical research database

Wikimedia Commons

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