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Cornus canadensis
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Cornus canadensis (Canadian Dwarf Cornel, Canadian Bunchberry, Crackerberry, in China cao zhu yu) is a herbaceous member of the dogwood family. It grows about 20-30 cm tall and bears tiny flowers a few millimeters across that form an inflorescence at the center of four white, petal-like bracts 3-4 cm diameter.
Each flower has highly elastic petals that flip backward, releasing springy filaments that are cocked underneath the petals.
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Encyclopedia
Cornus canadensis (Canadian Dwarf Cornel, Canadian Bunchberry, Crackerberry, in China cao zhu yu) is a herbaceous member of the dogwood family. It grows about 20-30 cm tall and bears tiny flowers a few millimeters across that form an inflorescence at the center of four white, petal-like bracts 3-4 cm diameter.
Each flower has highly elastic petals that flip backward, releasing springy filaments that are cocked underneath the petals. The filaments snap upward flinging pollen out of containers hinged to the filaments. This motion takes place in less than half a millisecond and the pollen experiences 800 times the force that the space shuttle does during liftoff. The bunchberry has one of the fastest plant actions found so far requiring a camera capable of shooting 10,000 frames per second in order to catch the action (Edwards et al. 2005).
The fruits are edible with a mild flavour somewhat like apples. The large seeds within are somewhat hard and crunchy. Birds are the main dispersal agents of the seeds, consuming the fruit during their fall migration. In Alaska, bunchberry is an important forage plant for mule deer, black-tailed deer and moose, which consume it all growing season long.
In the past this species has been given a number of names including Chamaepericlymenum canadense (Linnaeus) Ascherson & Graebner and
Cornella canadensis (Linnaeus) Rydberg, its placement in Cornus has some time been problematic. Bunchberry, a forest species, hybridizes with Cornus suecica, a bog species. When the two species grow near each other in their overlapping ranges in Alaska, Labrador, and Greenland cross pollination can occur producing a hybrid population.
Description
Cornus canadensis is a slow growing perennial herbaceous subshrub growing 10–20 cm tall, forming a carpet-like mat. The above ground shoots rise from slender creeping rhizomes that are placed 2.5 - 7.5 cm deep in the soil, and form clonal colonies under trees. The vertically produced above ground stems are slender and unbranched. The leaves are oppositely arranged on the stem, but are clustered with six leaves that often seem to be in a whorl because the internodes are compressed. The leafy green leaves are produced near the terminal node and consist of two types: 2 larger and 4 smaller leaves. The smaller leaves develop from the axillary buds of the larger leaves. The shiny dark green leaves have 2 to 3 mm long petioles and leaf blades that are obovate. The blades have entire margins and are 3.5 to 4.8 cm long and 1.5 to 2.5 cm wide, with 2 or 3 veins and cuneate shaped bases and abruptly acuminate apexes. In the fall, the leaves have red tinted veins and turn completely red. Inflorescences are made up of compound terminal cymes, with large showy white bracts. The bracts are broadly ovate and 0.8 to 1.2 cm long and 0.5 to 1.1 cm wide, with 7 parallel running veins. The lower nodes on the stem have greatly reduced rudimentary leaves. In late spring to mid summer, white flowers are produced that are 2 mm in diameter with reflexed petals that are ovate-lanceolate in shape and 1.5 to 2 mm long. The calyx tube is obovate in shape and 1 mm long covered with densely pubescent hairs along with grayish white appressed trichomes. Stamens are very short, being 1 mm long. The anthers are yellowish white in color, narrowly ovoid in shape. The style s are also 1 mm long and glabrous. Plants are for the most part self-sterile and dependent on pollinators for sexual reproduction, pollinators include bumblebees, solitary bees, beeflies, and syrphid flies. The fruits look
like berries but are drupes, the drupes are green, globose round in shape and turn bright red at maturity in late summer, each fruit is 5 mm in diameter and contains typically one or two ellipsoid-ovoid shaped stones.
Cornus canadensis is native to Northern China, far eastern Russia, Japan and North America in montane coniferous forests, where it is found growing along the margins of moist woods, on old tree stumps, in mossy areas and amongst other open and moist habitats, its a mesophytic species that needs cool moist soils.
Sources
External links
- Williams College website describing the work of Joan Edwards and Dwight Whittaker, with videos and animations.
- from Louis-Marie Herbarium (Laval University).
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