The flowering dogwood is one unique tree, small in stature yet large in lore. Even those folks normally disconnected from the natural world can readily identify the stunning white blooms of an April dogwood growing in the shady recesses of a woodlot or the back corner of someone’s yard.

Few naturally occurring trees are as abundant or recognizable throughout the commonwealth as Cornus florida, and for good reason. Some of my earliest memories take place in front of dogwood trees – posing with sisters and cousins for Easter photographs wearing a poorly tailored boy’s suit and lugging a wicker basket filled with plastic eggs beneath the tangled limbs of various white dogwoods. With her wrinkled fingers grasping the blooms, my Granny would recount the Christian legend of the dogwood tree during these holiday gatherings. I thought that the once-wild dogwoods taken from the overgrown fields of the farm, and in turn planted in all of the family members’ lawns, were an important piece of the annual celebration.

Years later I learned that the native Americans also held the dogwood in high esteem. They, too, had lore and legend centered on the bloom of the dogwood.

The hardy little tree is presumed to have earned its name from one of two sources.

In our country’s early days, the bark of the dogwood was boiled and the concoction was then poured onto mangy dogs as a treatment. Another – and more likely – possibility for the dogwood’s name comes from the uses of its very strong, tight-grained wood. Wooden daggers were known to have been prepared from the tough wood of dogwoods, and thus the name “dogwood” may have originally came from “dagwood” or something similar.

Without a doubt, anyone who has ever pruned dogwoods knows the virtues of their pulp, which is why the wood has been fashioned into an array of durable things now commonly made out of materials unavailable many years ago, such as arrow shafts, golf driver heads, tool handles, wedges and mallets. Four snow-white petals, or bracts, serve as visual attractants for pollinating insects on the dogwood tree, as there are dozens of minuscule yellow flowers in the middle of the four bracts. During the fall, as the leaves of the dogwood change into deep red or purple, clusters of vivid red berries will be present where the bright blossoms were in the early days of springtime.

Many birds and animals relish the fruit of the dogwood and deposit the undigested seeds all over the place, a fact evident when a field or fencerow is allowed to grow for several years and the dogwoods emerge neck-in-neck with the cedars and mimosas.

We even have a weather term – “Dogwood Winter” – used to describe a brief period of cold weather that occurs this time of year, after we have nearly become accustomed to the mild temperatures of April and May.

The dogwood is a tree of cultural importance in America today and has been for centuries. So take some time in the coming weeks to enjoy this pint-sized native tree of ours.

— Geordon T. Howell is outdoors columnist for the Daily News. He may be reached by e-mailing highbrasshowell@yahoo.com.