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| | Watch a video on the importance of this campaign |
universities in the southeastern US will use your
observations to identify variation in the phenology of flowering dogwood varieties and investigate the genes that may be influencing the timing of leaf-out, flowering, and leaf-fall.
Some of you have already started to see flower buds appearing on your trees. Keep watching your trees for flower buds and breaking leaf buds. Below, we break down how to tell the difference between the two.
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1. If you have not already done so, set up a site and add your plants to it in
Nature's Notebook. Visit our website for further details on using Nature's Notebook to observe phenology of flowering or cloned dogwoods .
Now is a great time to make sure you have registered the correct dogwood varietal (cloned or flowering dogwood). If you have registered your plant incorrectly, email support@usanpn.org.
2. Start checking your dogwood (at least weekly) for flower buds and leaf buds.
3. Report your observations. Periodically log into your Nature's Notebook account and transfer your observations from your paper data sheet into the online reporting system.
Or, enter your observations directly using our mobile apps for Android or Apple devices.
One of the questions we get asked most frequently is How can I tell the difference between a dogwood leaf bud and flower bud?
Here are some tips:
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Dogwood flower buds,
Derek Ramsey, Wikimedia Commons
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Flower buds typically appear before leaf buds on dogwoods, and are rounder in appearance than leaf buds.
You should start reporting "yes" to the phenophase Flowers or flower buds when the flower bud that is present throughout the winter starts to expand its bud scales and show the flower buds inside.
Also, remember that the "flowers" you are looking for are actually the small yellow/green flowers inside the large white bracts. Do not report a "yes" to Open flowers until you see the small yellow/green flowers open to show their reproductive parts. |
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Dogwood leaf buds,
S. Seiberling, UNC Herbarium
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Dogwood leaf buds are more pointy in appearance than flower buds. You should report a "no" to the phenophase Breaking leaf buds until you start to see the green leaf tip emerge from the end of the bud.
Once you see the green leaf tips, report a "yes" to Breaking leaf buds until you estimate that all the leaves have expanded and you can see the petiole, or leaf stalk, attaching the leaves to the stem. |
If you think you have misidentified a flower or leaf bud, you can correct your submitted observations. Learn more here.
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What you are reporting so far this year
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Observers have reported on dogwoods at 45 sites so far this year. The map below shows the sites that have reported a "yes" to flowers or flower buds so far this year.
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| | Sites reporting a "yes" for flowers or flower buds in native flowering dogwood (represented by blue) and cloned dogwood (Appalachian Spring, represented by orange) in 2018. Darker colors represent sites with more observations. |
Have you seen Flowers or flower buds on your dogwoods yet this year? Colored bars on the phenology calendars below indicate that an observer reported "yes" for flowers or flower buds on their dogwoods.
Remember, logging "no" observations (indicated by the light gray bars below) are just as important as "yes" observations - the "no's" help data analysts to pinpoint when an event actually started.
The USA-NPN Activity Curves give a closer look at the phenophase of flowers or flower buds. The curve shows the proportion of individual trees for which an observer reported "yes" for flowers or flower buds this year. Flowering dogwood flowering started in early January, but cloned dogwoods did not start flowering until February. Later this spring, we will be able to see the peak in the number of trees with flowers or flower buds for these species.
Keep watching your trees for open flowers and breaking leaf buds!
Thank you for your contributions to this important work!
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  Erin Posthumus
Outreach Coordinator
(520) 621-1670
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