The dogwood tree

BY KATHY PICKENS

The Greenville Standard

 

Among the many plants associated with Easter is the flowering dogwood tree. Its scientific name is Cornus florida, meaning flowering horn.

The nickname “dogwood” could have originated from the use of the tree’s bark to treat mange or for the inferior quality of the berries leaving them only “fit for dogs.”

Another possibility is that the density of the wood made it a good choice for making skewers for meat which led the tree to be called “daggerwood” or “dagwood.”

One legend associating the dogwood tree with Easter is that its wood was used to make the cross.

Afterward the dogwood was changed to forever grow stunted and twisted so that no more crosses could be made from its wood.

The structure of the flower adds more connections with Easter with the four petals of the bloom representing the cross, the center reminiscent of a crown of thorns, and the tips of each bloom being tinged red as if from Jesus’s head, hands, and feet.

This little flowering dogwood tree sits at the intersection of Walnut Street and South Pine Street  and bore witness to Holy Week services at four beautiful churches nearby– First Methodist Church, First Presbyterian Church, St Elizabeth Catholic Church, and Walnut Street Church of Christ.