# Pale Dogwood (Cornus obliqua)

> A spreading dogwood for wet, sunny ground, with sweetly fragrant creamy flowers in early summer and blue fruit that birds take in fall.

Family: Cornaceae (dogwood family). Also called blue-fruited dogwood, Cornus amomum subsp. obliqua, Cornus amomum var. schuetzeana, Swida obliqua, Cornus purpusii. Category: Native Shrubs. Grown from seed by Blue Whale Trees. Web version: https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/pale-dogwood/

![Pale dogwood (Cornus obliqua) branches with narrow leaves and clusters of dark blue fruit](https://bluewhaletrees.com/img/plants/pale-dogwood-h1610-800.jpg)
*Photo: Gilles Ayotte, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped · [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ACornus_obliqua_15-p.bot-cornus.obli-01.jpg)*

## Facts

- Type: Shrub
- Mature height: 6 to 15 ft
- USDA hardiness zones: 4 to 8
- Grows wild in: Stream banks, floodplain forests, swamps and wet flats
- Native range: 28 states and [the District of Columbia](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=DC), north and west to [North Dakota](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=ND) and south to [Arkansas](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=AR) ([Arkansas](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=AR), [Connecticut](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=CT), [Illinois](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=IL), [Indiana](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=IN), [Iowa](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=IA), [Kansas](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=KS), [Kentucky](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=KY), [Maine](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=ME), [Maryland](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=MD), [Massachusetts](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=MA), [Michigan](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=MI), [Minnesota](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=MN), [Missouri](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=MO), [Nebraska](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=NE), [New Hampshire](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=NH), [New Jersey](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=NJ), [New York](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=NY), [North Dakota](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=ND), [Ohio](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=OH), [Oklahoma](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=OK), [Pennsylvania](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=PA), [Rhode Island](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=RI), [South Dakota](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=SD), [Tennessee](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=TN), [Vermont](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=VT), [Virginia](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=VA), [West Virginia](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=WV), [Wisconsin](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=WI) and [the District of Columbia](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=DC))
- Sun: Full, Part
- Soil moisture: Wet, Average
- Growth rate: Medium
- Flowers: May to July
- Fruit: Berries, August to October
- First crop: 3 to 4 years
- Mature spread: 10 ft
- Traits: Tolerates wet soil, Wildlife value, Erosion control, Showy flowers
- Sold as: Saplings, Seed

Heights and zones are typical ranges for the species in cultivation; local conditions and seed source shift them.

## Availability

Saplings ship [bare-root](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/planting-bare-root-trees-on-arrival/index.html.md) or [in a pot](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/a-sapling-in-a-pot/index.html.md), [usually 12 to 18 inches tall](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/small-sapling-or-big-transplant/index.html.md), in the dormant season, and their [height and age](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/reading-a-nursery-listing/index.html.md) are stated with the price, once available. Live plants ship February to May and October to November. Not priced yet: leave an email on the web page for one email when it is priced, with a code for 10% off the plants in that order, not shipping or tax, or write to captain@bluewhaletrees.com.

## Notes

Pale dogwood is a wide, spreading shrub of stream banks, shorelines, wet meadows and bottomland woods across the Midwest and the Northeast. It also goes by the name silky dogwood, and it is sold under that name or as a subspecies of Cornus amomum, the eastern silky dogwood we also grow. Its leaves are narrow and wedge-shaped at the base, pale whitish beneath with flat white hairs. Silky dogwood's leaves are broader and rounded at the base, with tan or rusty hairs beneath, some of them curling, though many plants fall between the two where both grow. New Jersey lists it as endangered. It is useful on poorly drained ground and for preventing erosion on lake shores and stream banks. Give it a wet, sunny corner, a pond margin or a stream bank, where birds can strip its blue fruit in fall.

## Size, growth and what to expect

Pale dogwood grows at a medium pace, about a foot and a half a year in our growth estimator. It makes an open, rounded shrub 6 to 15 feet tall, most often 6 to 10 feet tall and as wide. Its branches sometimes arch to the ground and root where they touch. It begins to fruit at 3 to 4 years old.

Flat clusters of small, creamy white flowers open from May into July, and they are sweetly fragrant. Many kinds of bees visit them, along with wasps, flies and butterflies. The blue fruit, about a third of an inch across and often bleached white where the sun strikes it, ripens from August into October. Waxwings, catbirds, thrushes, wood ducks and gamebirds eat it, and spring azure caterpillars feed on the plant.

It grows wild from New Brunswick and Quebec west to the Dakotas, and south to Virginia, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Kansas. Its home is stream and river banks, shorelines, bottomland woods, wet meadows, marshes, swamps and fens.

## How to grow Pale Dogwood

Pale dogwood grows in full sun or part shade, in soil that stays moist or wet, sandy or not, and it tolerates alkaline soil. Plant it 5 feet from a wall and set plants 6 feet apart. At its size it can go within 15 feet of overhead wires.

Saplings ship bare-root or potted. Plant them dormant, from leaf fall until bud swell, in a hole wider than the roots and no deeper. Set the crown at the soil line, put the native soil back in, and keep the mulch clear of the stems. Clean the stones from the ripe fruit and sow them outdoors in fall, a quarter to half an inch deep. Seedlings come up the next spring. Stones kept until spring need 90 days damp in the refrigerator first. Cuttings also root easily.

Unless the ground stays wet, water it every day for the first two weeks after planting, every two to three days until week 12, and weekly through the first two summers. Deer browse the twigs and leaves and rabbits gnaw the bark, so cage young plants where they are common.

Each flower carries both male and female parts, so there are no male and female plants to pair. Long-horned beetle larvae, leaf beetles, weevils, aphids, scale insects and sawfly larvae feed on its wood and leaves.

## Sources

- [Flora of North America, vol. 12: Cornus obliqua Rafinesque, by Zack E. Murrell and Derick B. Poindexter](https://floranorthamerica.org/Cornus_obliqua)
- [Flora of North America, vol. 12: Cornus amomum Miller, by Zack E. Murrell and Derick B. Poindexter](https://floranorthamerica.org/Cornus_amomum)
- [Iowa State University Extension and Outreach, Natural Resources: Silky Dogwood](https://naturalresources.extension.iastate.edu/forestry/iowa_trees/trees/silky_dogwood.html)
- [Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center: Cornus obliqua](https://www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=COOB9)
- [Illinois Wildflowers (John Hilty): Swamp Dogwood, Cornus obliqua](https://www.illinoiswildflowers.info/trees/plants/sw_dogwood.html)
- [Minnesota Wildflowers: Cornus amomum, silky dogwood](https://www.minnesotawildflowers.info/shrub/silky-dogwood)
- [NatureServe Explorer: Cornus obliqua](https://explorer.natureserve.org/Taxon/ELEMENT_GLOBAL.2.139112/Cornus_obliqua)
- [New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, Natural Heritage Program: List of Endangered Plant Species and Plant Species of Concern, January 2024](https://web.archive.org/web/20250901030721/https://www.nj.gov/dep/parksandforests/natural/docs/njplantlist.pdf)
- [Tennessee Natural Heritage Program: Rare Plant List 2021](https://www.tn.gov/content/dam/tn/environment/natural-areas/documents/na_tn-rare-plant-list.pdf)
- [Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation: Natural Heritage Resources of Virginia, Rare Plants, September 2026](https://www.dcr.virginia.gov/natural-heritage/document/plantlist-current.pdf)
- [USDA Forest Service, Woody Plant Seed Manual (2008), Cornus chapter](https://www.fs.usda.gov/nsl/Wpsm/Cornus.pdf)

## Read before planting

- [Ten planting mistakes that quietly kill trees](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/ten-planting-mistakes/index.html.md)
- [Transplanting young trees: timing, water and protection](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/transplanting-young-trees/index.html.md)
- [Protecting young trees from voles, rabbits, deer and squirrels](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/protecting-trees-from-animals/index.html.md)
- [The habitat around a tree is part of the tree](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/habitat-around-a-tree/index.html.md)
- [What a young tree looks like: first-year seedlings of oak, walnut, hickory, chestnut, maple and redbud, and the weed trees to pull](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/what-a-young-tree-looks-like/index.html.md)
- [Invasive vines and shrubs are what is killing your woods](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/invasive-vines-and-shrubs/index.html.md)

## Related

- We grow 9 other dogwoods (Cornus): [all of them](https://bluewhaletrees.com/shop/index.html.md?q=cornus)
- Plants that share its sun and soil: [Silky Willow](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/silky-willow/index.html.md), [Buttonbush](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/buttonbush/index.html.md), [American Wisteria](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/american-wisteria/index.html.md) and [Wild Black Currant](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/wild-black-currant/index.html.md)
- Trees to plant it under: [American Elm](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/american-elm/index.html.md), [River Birch](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/river-birch/index.html.md) and [Peachleaf Willow](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/peachleaf-willow/index.html.md)
- Same size, similar character: [Gray Dogwood](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/gray-dogwood/index.html.md), [Bunchberry](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/bunchberry/index.html.md), [Roughleaf Dogwood](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/roughleaf-dogwood/index.html.md) and [Silky Dogwood](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/silky-dogwood/index.html.md)
- [Planting-site check](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/site-check/index.html.md): for a thrive, struggle or fail verdict on Pale Dogwood, add ?species=pale-dogwood with zone (2 to 10), sun (full, part, shade) and moisture (dry, average, wet) to that address; for example, the verdict for zone 4, part sun and average soil as Markdown is at https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/site-check/index.html.md?species=pale-dogwood&zone=4&sun=part&moisture=average
- [Companion species for Pale Dogwood](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/companions/index.html.md?species=pale-dogwood): the natives that share its ground and the plants that pair with it in a yard.
- [Tree growth estimator](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/growth/index.html.md): how the height and trunk projections are made; the estimate for Pale Dogwood as Markdown is at https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/growth/index.html.md?species=pale-dogwood (add height=, years= and site= poor, average or good)
- [Seed sowing planner](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/sowing/index.html.md): how Pale Dogwood is sown, in the chart for every species (treatment, cold days, depth, timing); the dated plan for it as Markdown is at https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/sowing/index.html.md?species=pale-dogwood (add state= and zone= for your own frost dates, method=fridge for the refrigerator route)
- [Pollination planner](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/pollination/index.html.md): what Pale Dogwood needs for a crop and how many to plant, in the table for every species; the verdict for 1 of them as Markdown is at https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/pollination/index.html.md?plants=pale-dogwood:1
- [Planting-window tool](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/planting-window/index.html.md): when to plant Pale Dogwood where you live, as a fall and a spring window from the local frost dates; the windows as Markdown are at https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/planting-window/index.html.md?species=pale-dogwood&state=MO&zone=6 with your own state and zone in place of those
- [Planting-distance tool](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/distance/index.html.md): how far Pale Dogwood goes from a house, a septic field, a walk, wires, a property line and the next tree; the distances as Markdown are at https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/distance/index.html.md?species=pale-dogwood&near=house,septic,pavement,wires,boundary,tree
- [Bloom and fruit calendar](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/calendar/index.html.md): the months Pale Dogwood flowers and fruits, in the grid for every species; its own row and the gaps of a planting with it as Markdown at https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/calendar/index.html.md?plants=pale-dogwood