'Variegata' features leaves with bluish-green centers and creamy white margins. Common name refers to the cherry-like fruits which resemble in color the semi-precious gemstone carnelian (or cornelian). This name was applied to this plant because it was seen as the opposite of Cornus sanguinea, known as the female or wild cornel. The specific epithet mas means "masculine" or "male". Cornus is also the Latin name for cornelian cherry. Genus name comes from the Latin word cornu meaning horn in probable reference to the strength and density of the wood. Fruits may be used for making syrups and preserves. Fruits are edible, although sour tasting fresh off the plant. Fruits are ellipsoid, fleshy, one-seeded berries (drupes to 5/8" long) which mature to cherry red in mid-summer. Ovate to elliptic dark green leaves (to 4" long) typically develop insignificant fall color. Variegata (Cornus mas 'Variegata') Variegated Cornelian Cherry is a shrubby tree to 12, has masses of yellow flowers on blackish limbs in late winter, edible fruit (pretty sour actually so it is mostly used for jelly, etc.) and good fall color: a super tree all-told. Each umbel is surrounded at the base by small, yellowish, petaloid bracts which are much less showy than the large decorative bracts found on some other species of dogwood such as Cornus florida (flowering dogwood) and Cornus kousa (kousa dogwood). Yellow flowers on short stalks bloom in early spring before the leaves emerge in dense, showy, rounded clusters (umbels to 3/4" wide). Scaly, exfoliating bark develops on mature trunks. It typically grows over time to 15-25' tall with a spread to 12-20' wide. Cornus mas, commonly known as cornelian cherry, is a deciduous shrub or small tree that is native to central and southern Europe into western Asia.
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