VALUE AND USE
SPECIES: Cornus nuttallii | Pacific Dogwood 



WOOD PRODUCTS VALUE : 
The white wood of Pacific dogwood is heavy, hard, and fine grained [10].
There is small demand for the wood in the manufacture of golf club
heads, piano keys, and for shuttles in textile mills [1,10].


IMPORTANCE TO LIVESTOCK AND WILDLIFE : 
Pacific dogwood provides poor to good forage for livestock and wildlife
[18,29].  The cover value varies from poor to good depending on the
successional status of Pacific dogwood [27].


PALATABILITY : 
Pacific dogwood has high concentrations of tannins in the bark, which
make the browse bitter.  This accounts for its low palatability to
livestock and wild ungulates; the young sprouts, however, are cropped
with relish [27,29].  The fruit is of fair importance to some game
birds, nongame birds, and some small mammals [18,21].  The fruit of
Pacific dogwood composes up to 10 percent of the diet of the band-tailed
pigeon [1,18] and less than 2 percent of the mountain beaver's diet
[18].

The relish and degree of use by livestock and wildlife for Pacific
dogwood in several western states is rated as follows [8,17,29,36]:

                         ID      CA      OR      WA
Cattle                  poor    poor    poor    poor
Sheep                   fair    fair    fair    fair    
Goats                   fair    fair    fair    fair    
Horses                  poor    poor    poor    poor    
Wapiti                  fair    fair    fair    fair    
Black-tailed deer       poor    poor    poor    poor    
White-tailed deer       poor    poor    poor    poor
Mule deer               fair    fair    fair    fair


NUTRITIONAL VALUE : 
NO-ENTRY


COVER VALUE : 
As Pacific dogwood matures it provides varing degrees of hiding cover
for ungulates.  During the first few years after disturbance by logging
or fire, saplings and older specimens provide good cover.  As the stems
from a resprouting root crown thin out or a specimen's crown grows into
the canopy, the cover value lessens [27].


VALUE FOR REHABILITATION OF DISTURBED SITES : 
Due to its high flood resistance [14], Pacific dogwood has been found to
be effective in streambank stabilization in areas were the soils are
deep and well drained [26].


OTHER USES AND VALUES : 
Native Americans used the wood of Pacific dogwood to make salmon
harpoons [5] and made a tea from the bark that was used as a diarrhetic
[1,5].

Early settlers used the wood for mauls and mallet heads [10], and
produced a quininelike substance from the tannin-rich bark that was used
to fight fever [1,29].

Pacific dogwood is cultivated as an ornamental [10,26].


MANAGEMENT CONSIDERATIONS : 
Pacific dogwood seedlings and saplings are shade tolerant.  When
establishing new trees, they should be planted in a ring of native
shrubs such as snowberry (Symphoricarpos spp.) and ninebark (Physocarpus
spp.) to avoid sunburn of the lower trunk and branches, while allowing
the upper branches to receive sun [26].  The lower boles of
shade-intolerant mature trees are susceptible to frost injury [14] and
to disturbance of the soil resulting in soil accumulation and compaction
around the first 2 inches (5 cm) of the bole [26].

Pacific dogwood is curently being used as an indicator species for warm
sites.  It is useful in the estimation of summer (August to September)
soil temperatures for it is indicative of soils that have a mean summer
temperature of 52 degrees Fahrenheit (11 degrees C) [7,22].

The water soluble leachates from senescent leaves of Pacific dogwood
have the potential to slow the regeneration of Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga
menziesii) [33].

Related categories for Species: Cornus nuttallii | Pacific Dogwood