Photo: Gilles Ayotte, CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Roundleaf Dogwood

Cornus rugosa

Also called round-leaved dogwood, roundleaf cornel, Cornus circinata.

A shade-tolerant northern dogwood with nearly round, wrinkled leaves, flat clusters of white flowers and pale blue berries on red stalks.

Tolerates shadeWildlife valueDrought tolerant

Type: Shrub
Mature height: 3–10 ft
USDA zones: 2–8
Growth rate: Medium
Sun: Part, Shade
Soil moisture: Dry, Average
Grows wild in: The forest understory, rich moist slopes and rocky ground
Native range: 22 states and the District of Columbia, north and west to North Dakota and south to Kentucky
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Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin and the District of Columbia
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Roundleaf dogwood is a thicket-forming shrub of northern woods, from the Maritime provinces and Quebec to Manitoba and south to Virginia, West Virginia and Iowa. Its broad, nearly round leaves have deep veins that give them a wrinkled look, and they are soft with hairs beneath. It grows in the understory of hardwood and mixed forests. It also grows on rocky slopes and along streams, in part to full shade. Maryland lists it as endangered, Indiana as threatened and Ohio as potentially threatened. Give it part shade at a woodland edge or under open trees.

Size, growth and what to expect

It grows at a medium rate, about a foot and a half a year in our growth estimator. It makes a shrub 3 to 10 feet tall, sometimes taller, with green to purplish, warty stems. Its leaves are 2 to 6 inches long and nearly as wide, dark green above and pale and soft with hairs beneath. Seedlings first bear fruit at 2 to 6 years, once the plant is about 3 feet tall.

Flat clusters of small, creamy white flowers about 2 inches across open from May into July. Pale blue berries about a quarter inch across ripen from late August into October, on stalks that turn red.

It grows wild on wooded slopes, rocky ground, stream banks and lake shores. It is found from the Maritime provinces and Quebec west to Manitoba and North Dakota, and south to Virginia, West Virginia and Iowa. It has vanished from Tennessee.

How to grow Roundleaf Dogwood

Roundleaf dogwood grows in part shade or shade and does best under a thin canopy or at a woodland edge. It takes dry soil as well as a well-drained sandy loam. Plant it 5 feet from a wall and set plants 5 feet apart. At its size it can go within 15 feet of overhead wires.

Saplings ship bare-root or potted. Plant them dormant, in a hole wider than the roots and no deeper, and put the native soil back in. Clean the pulp off the stones and sow them outdoors in fall, a quarter to half an inch deep, and mulch the bed over winter. Seedlings come up the next spring. Stored stones need about three months damp in the refrigerator before a spring sowing.

Water weekly through the first summer if rain is short. Its spreading roots send up suckers and build a colony.

Each flower carries both male and female parts, so there are no male and female plants to pair. It is a larval host for the spring azure butterfly.

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

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