This species is a native of Japan, Korea, China, and Taiwan. It’s a popular cultivated small tree worldwide.
As with several dogwoods of North America, the insignificant true flowers are clumped in the dark central cluster. The petal-like white bracts are enlarged bracts. Over the winter the bracts protect the embryonic clustered flowers.
Identification of the three (3) insects in the photograph.
Is this a composite: No
Nikon D-850, 16-35mm
We have this in the garden, but it’s about 7 feet tall and the flowers are widely scattered. Maybe if I’d trimmed it early on I might have ended up with a marvellous cluster like this, Paul. It’s great to get a flower photo with (almost) no green and all the bracts in good condition like this. I love the brown tips. And they’re almost all in focus, so well done. I’m surprised you need IDs for an ant, hoverfly and beetle. Voila!
Thanks @Mike_Friel ,
Is your Cornus a native? I’d like to see the native variety for comparison. This may be a cultivar grown for the prolific flower habit. The tree is growing at a botanical garden.
I guess I could have made a stack and got all the flowers in sharp focus, but I seldom use the technique, preferring to have some out of focus parts of an image to give depth to the image. It’s just an opinion.
Not so fast, the hoverfly is right, but what species of beetle? That family is the largest in the world so you need to be more specific. As for the ant, again there are lots and lots of ants. ;>)
I put that in the “Feedback Requested” just for fun, but also to point out that an individual gaze has a lot to do with how a photo is interpreted. The composition, technical qualities perfect, and to the photographer the subject interesting. However, to others, the subject might be intensely disagreeable. Where others see a lovely bed of wildflowers, I see a highly invasive species damaging a forest ecosystem.
Enough philosophy, thanks for the comment.
