Red-osier dogwood (Cornus stolonifera)

Gitxsan name:  xhlaahl
Wet'suwet'en name:  kak dilk'in

Botanical Description

• freely spreading, stoloniferous shrub with many stems, 1-4 metres tall
• sharp pointed, oval leaves, prominent veins
• white to greenish flowers, small and numerous, in dense flat-topped terminal clusters
• white (occasionally blue-tinged) small berrylike drupes, bitter and inedible
• found in moist soil, from swamps to open upland forest
• valley bottoms to mid elevations

Photo courtesy of Ray Coupe (58kB)

Ethnobotanical Description

The inner bark of the red-osier dogwood was boiled and applied as a poultice to sores or swellings as a pain killer. It was also smoked for diseases affecting the lungs. The wood was used for the frame of the "dome-shaped" sweat hut or fasting hut. The cambium layer was used as a female medicine for reproductive problems such as PMS and after childbirth.