Cornus sessilis

Blackfruit dogwood

Family: Cornaceae · Type: shrub · Native

Blackfruit dogwood is a California native shrub found in northwestern California, the Cascade Range, and northern Sierra Nevada along streambanks at elevations below 1,550 meters. Flowering from March to April, this plant produces subtle yellow flowers in small umbel-like clusters with four brown bracts featuring yellow margins. Growing as a small shrub or tree up to 5 meters tall with gray or yellow-brown stems, it has a distinctive branching structure. Its leaves are obovate to elliptic, 4.5 to 9 centimeters long, with soft strigose undersides and vein axils that are slightly woolly. The fruit transforms dramatically through color stages, beginning green-white, then yellow, then red, before finally becoming a shiny purple-black at maturity.

Habitat: Streambanks

Bloom period: Mar-Apr

Elevation: < 1550 m

Bioregions: NW, CaR, n SN.

California counties: San Luis Obispo, Humboldt, Trinity, Nevada, Tehama, Placer, Sierra, Butte, El Dorado, Calaveras, Amador, Siskiyou, Yuba, Shasta, Plumas, Del Norte

Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.