Cornus wilsoniana Wangerin

The fruit is a source of oil (up to 30% oil), the leaves are used for livestock feed, and the dense wood is used for making farm tools and furniture. The attractively shaped crown makes Cornus wilsoniana a good candidate for a street tree.

Trees 5–18 m tall, rarely to 40 m tall. Bark gray or greenish gray, rectangularly splitting. Young branches grayish green, ± 4-angled, pubescent with grayish short appressed trichomes; old branches brown, glabrous, with brown, narrowly elliptic lenticels. Leaves opposite; petiole 0.8–2 cm; leaf blade abaxially grayish green, elliptic or ovate-elliptic, 6–12 × 2–5.5 cm, papery, abaxially densely pubescent with white short appressed trichomes and papillae, scabrous, veins 3 or 4, base cuneate to broadly cuneate, margin slightly revolute, apex shortly acuminate to acuminate. Paniculate to corymbose cymes 6–10 cm wide, with short white trichomes. Flowers white, ca. 7 mm in diam. Calyx lobes triangular, 0.4–0.5 mm, longer than disk. Petals narrowly lanceolate, 3.5–5 × 0.9–1.3 mm. Stamens 6–6.8 mm, equaling petals; anthers yellow, narrowly oblong. Style cylindrical, sometimes slightly expanded near apex, 3.5–4 mm; stigma disciform, not broader than style. Fruit purplish black or black, globose, 6–7 mm in diam.; stones globose, 4–4.5 mm in diam., ribs inconspicuous. Fl. May, fr. Sep–Nov.

Fujian, Gansu, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Henan, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangxi, Shaanxi, Sichuan, Zhejiang.

Forests; 100–1100 m.

Cornus wilsoniana, called ghost dogwood or Wilson's dogwood, is species of Cornus native to central and southeastern China. A tree typically 5 to 10 m, rarely reaching 40 m, it has leaves with white undersides, profuse white flowers in May, and striking grey–green mottled bark on mature specimens. The purplish‑black fruit are harvested for vegetable oil, the leaves are used for fodder, and the timber is valued for tools and furniture. Its well-shaped crown and attractive bark has led to proposals that it be developed as a street tree.