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Bunchberries of British Columbia
Author: Douglas Justice
Of British Columbia natives, the dogwoods are among my favourites. They're attractive, versatile performers in the landscape, but I also find them a fascinating study. The genus Cornus is found primarily in the temperate Northern Hemisphere, but there are also species in South America and Africa. Our natives include red-osier dogwood, Pacific or western flowering dogwood (our provincial flower), and bunchberry. The common name dogwood is derived from the term dog (or dag), meaning a skewer, as woody species were once used to make skewers or pegs. Cornus, the traditional name for cornelian cherry (a shrubby European native), was adopted by Linnaeus for the genus. The word is probably derived from the Latin korn, meaning horn, and probably also refers to the hard wood of the species.
The native herbaceous dogwoods, or bunchberries, are exquisite plants, inhabiting mostly moist or boggy ground around British Columbia. Our species are Cornus canadensis (eastern bunchberry) - a species also found across North America, Cornus suecica (northern bunchberry), and the coastal and western montane Cornus unalaschkensis (western bunchberry), the naturally occurring hybrid of the eastern and northern species. The differences between the three are not immediately obvious to the casual observer, but the species are generally distinguishable on the basis of their geographical ranges. For those with an appetite for such details, there is an excellent explanation in the book Wildflower Genetics, by University of British Columbia botany professors Fred Ganders and Tony Griffiths, which is available at the Shop in the Garden.
Like the more familiar tree dogwoods, bunchberries produce clusters of small flowers surrounded by pointed white bracts (the bracts are the showy bits). Each floral assemblage surmounts a whorl of ribbed, dark green leaves produced on low wiry stems. Were these not attractive enough, clusters of lovely, orange-red berries (technically, drupes, not berries) appear after successful pollination. The mechanism of pollen dispersal from bunchberry flowers is worth noting, too. Pollen is forcibly catapulted upwards as the petals open. One supposes that foraging insects unwittingly trigger these ejections and are powdered from below, later transferring this pollen to receptive flowers in their meanderings. This unusual pollination system, not found in other Cornus species, and the herbaceous habit of bunchberries suggests to some botanists that they should be classified in a separate genus, Chamaepericlymenum.
Bunchberries are excellent groundcover plants for the garden, spreading quickly by rhizomes (underground stems) in moist ground where drainage is good. New stems appear annually, and in mild areas, the plants are more or less evergreen. As the stems and rhizomes are sensitive, they will not tolerate compacted soils. Bunchberries are happiest in light organic mulch in the shade. While commercial production remains somewhat less than adequate, the species are becoming better known and more commonly available. In the southwest corner of British Columbia, seed of Cornus unalaschkensis is collected in the local mountains and forests for local nursery production.