Red Osier Dogwood

Cornus sericea, the red osier or red-osier dogwood, is a flowering shrub in the dogwood family, native to much of North America from Alaska east to Newfoundland. It is a medium to tall deciduous shrub that spreads by underground stolons into dense thickets, and its twigs are dark red. The fruit is a white berry that is bitter and unpalatable. Some Plateau Indigenous tribes ate the berries to treat colds and slow bleeding. Known as čhaŋšáša in Lakota, the inner bark was used by the Lakota and other Native Americans as traditional tobacco, alone or in a mixture. Among Algonquian peoples such as the Ojibwe, smoking mixtures called kinnikinnick blended the inner bark with tobacco, and more western tribes added it to bearberry leaf. The Ojibwe used the bark in yellow, red and black dye recipes, including for porcupine quills, and the withies are used in basketry. It is also planted to hold waterway banks against erosion.