Swedish Cornel

Cornus suecica

''Cornus suecica'', the dwarf cornel or bunchberry, is a species of flowering plant in the dogwood family Cornaceae, native to cool temperate and subarctic regions of Europe and Asia, and also locally in extreme northeastern and northwestern North America.
Dwarf Cornel This is another joy that you come upon high on the Scottish mountains, this on Liathach.  The Dwarf Cornel is a low-growing rhizomatous perennial herb of wet, base-poor peats at moderate to high altitudes, including areas of late snow-lie. Here about 850 metres. Bunchberry,Cornus suecica,Dwarf Cornel,Torridon,Wester Ross,cornus suecica

Appearance

Dwarf cornel is a rhizomatous herbaceous perennial growing to 20 cm tall, with few pairs of sessile cauline leaves in opposite pairs, 2–4 cm long and 1–3 cm broad, with 3-5 veins from the base. The flowers are small, dark purple, produced in a tight umbel that is surrounded by four conspicuous white petal-like bracts 1–1.5 cm long. The fruit is a red berry.

Habitat

''Cornus suecica'' is a plant of heaths, moorland and mountains, often growing beneath taller species such as heather . Its range is nearly circumboreal, but it is absent from the continental centres of Asia and North America. In North America, the species is found in Alaska and British Columbia , and also eastern Canada , as well as Greenland, but not in the intervening region.

Where ''Cornus canadensis'', a forest species, and ''Cornus suecica'', a heath or bog species, grow near each other in their overlapping ranges in Alaska, Labrador, and Greenland, they can hybridize by cross-pollination, producing plants with intermediate characteristics.

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Taxonomy
KingdomPlantae
DivisionAngiosperms
ClassEudicots
OrderCornales
FamilyCornaceae
GenusCornus
SpeciesC. suecica
Photographed in
United Kingdom