Red Buds and Flowering Dogwoods

     Two kinds of small, attractive trees bloom in mid to late April in the Middle Atlantic States, beautifying many landscapes at that time.  The lovely red buds have multitudes of pretty, lavender-pink blooms and flowering dogwoods have many large, white "flowers".   A domestic form of dogwoods has pink blossoms. 
     Both species of trees are conspicuous when blooming, standing out against backgrounds of gray tree trunks and the light-green of newly growing, deciduous leaves.  One can readily see both types of flowering trees, even when riding in a vehicle.      
     Red buds and flowering dogwoods have much in common, besides blooming at the same time and being attractive when in flower.  Both species are native to the mixed, oak forests of the eastern half of the United States.  Both kinds, being short, are understory trees in those woodlands.  They must be able to tolerate partial shade to thrive in the understory.  Both grow best in moist, rich, bottomland soil in the woods and along their edges.  Both also pioneer abandoned fields and pastures, and roadsides.  Red buds actually form thickets of themselves in some deserted meadows, beautifying those pastures with their many pink flowers.  And many individuals of both kinds are planted ornamentally on lawns, often in clumps for added beauty.   
     Red buds grow up to thirty feet tall.  Their lovely blossoms grow in clusters at intervals along the twigs before the foliage develops.  Without their heart-shaped leaves, we can see the beautiful blooms of red buds quite well.  And so can bees and other species of early insects that pollinate the many blossoms while sipping nectar from them.
     Each fertilized bloom grows a light-brown, three-inch seed pod that contains about six flattened, brown seeds.  Squirrels and other kinds of rodents, and certain kinds of birds, consume many of those seeds during fall and winter.  But many seeds develop into new trees.
     Using their sharp mouth parts, female leaf-cutting bees scissor round chunks from the smooth, thin leaves of red buds and fly away with those fragments to their nests in hollow twigs.  The bees make compartments in those twigs with the leaf bits, put a small ball of nectar and pollen in each room and lay an egg on it.  The larva that hatches in each enclosure ingests the nectar and pollen, pupates and emerges from its nursery chamber as a full-grown bee.  One can see the round, quarter-inch-across holes in several red bud leaves.
     Flowering dogwoods grow up to twenty feet high.  Their "flowers" open a bit earlier than their leaf buds, making those blooms more obvious to view.  The real blossoms, however, are very small, greenish-yellow and clustered in the center of each flower of four brackets, not petals.  Those brackets were small and folded through winter, sheltering the flower buds.  Again, those tiny blooms are pollinated by small insects and groups of green berries grow where the flowers were.  Each green berry has a hard seed inside it that will grow into a new tree, if given a chance.
     Those green berries ripen and are red by September.  It works out right for them to be red because they are obvious to berry-eating birds who eat them, digest their pulp, but pass their seeds in droppings all over the countryside as those small fowl fly from place to place.  Squirrels and other types of rodents eat the hard seed inside each berry.
     Red buds and flowering dogwoods have one more beauty each- their colored leaves in fall, which add more beauty to the landscape.  Red buds have yellow ones while dogwoods' foliage turns red.  Eventually, the leaves of both trees drop from the trees, leaving the trees bare through winter.
     Look for the beautiful flowers of red buds and flowering dogwoods from the middle to the end of April in the Middle Atlantic Sates.  Those lovely blooms cheer many a human soul, and feed wildlife.