Pacific Dogwood - Floral Emblem of British Columbia

Yesterday I posted a photo of an unofficial symbol of the city of Victoria, our hanging flower baskets. Victoria is the provincial capital so today, to continue the theme of floral symbols I am posting these photos of the Pacific Dogwood (Cornus nuttallii), the official floral emblem of The Province of British Columbia. British Columbia has about a billion huge trees and the dogwood is not the most impressive but as a flower, at ten to twenty-five meters tall it's suitably monumental. British Columbia's tree emblem is the Western Redcedar, and we'll have a look at that one day too.

The dogwood flower itself is a bit tricky or botanically picky; those big white petals are not petals, like any normal person would have thought. They're technically known as bracts, and are more akin to leaves than to petals. The true flowers are those little greenish things in the middle. Now you know.