This lifeform is found east of the Continental Divide in North America. The white color will help identify this lifeform.

Alternate Leaf Dogwood (Cornus alternifolia) is unique among the dogwoods in that its leaves are not opposite but alternate. The center of the branches (pith) are white. Its fruits are blue-black. Fruits and flowers are frequently not in large umbels. It is found from Maine to Minnesota and south to Arkansas and Florida. This bush sometimes appears as a small tree.

Dogwoods (genus Cornus) are a group of trees and bushes with leaves that have smooth margins.  The leaf veins tend to follow the leaf margins. There are about 45 species worldwide found primarily in the Northern Hemisphere.  The genus is also represented in Africa and South America.  North America is home to 16 species and four subspecies.  In North America flowering dogwood, Canadian dogwood,  and Pacific dogwood have large flowers while other species have clusters of smaller flowers.  Several of the eastern North American species are difficult to identify.  (The European buckthorns have leaves with similar characteristics.)

Dogwood Family (Cornaceae) is composed of less than 100 species  that are widely distributed. This group could easily be combined with the Carrot Family, but because these are mostly woody plants, they are separated into a separate family. There are 16 species, four natural hybrids, and four subspecies growing in greater North America.

Carrot or Umbel Order (Umbelliflorae Order) can be recognized by the fact that their flowers are usually arranged in a radial symmetric pattern called an umbel.

Dicots (Dicotyledoneae Class) are the predominant group of vascular plants on earth. With the exception of the grasses (Monocots) and the Conifers (Gymnosperms), most of the larger plants that one encounters are  Dicots. Dicots are characterized by having a seed with two outer shell coverings. Some of the more primitive Dicots are the typical hardwood trees (oaks, birches, hickories, etc). The more advanced Dicots include many of the Composite Family flowers like the  Dandelion, Aster, Thistles, and Sunflowers. Although many Monocots reach a very high degree of specialization, most botanists feel that the Dicots represent the most advanced group of plants.

Seed plants (Phylum Embryophyta) are generally grouped into one large phylum containing three major classes: the Gymnosperms, the Monocots, and the Dicots. (Some scientists separate the Gymnosperms into a separate phylum and refer to the remaining plants as flowering plants or Angiospermae.)

For North American counts of the number of species in each genus and family, the primary reference has been John T. Kartesz, author of A Synonymized Checklist of the Vascular Flora of the United States, Canada, and Greenland (1994). The geographical scope of his lists include, as part of greater North America, Hawaii, Alaska, Greenland, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands.

Kartesz lists 21,757 species of vascular plants comprising the ferns, gymnosperms and flowering plants as being found in greater North America (including Alaska, Hawaii, Greenland, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands).

There are estimates within the scientific world that about half of the listed North American seed plants were originally native with the balance being comprised of Eurasian and tropical plants that have become established.

Plant kingdom contains a large variety of different organisms including mosses, ferns, and seed plants. Most plants manufacture their energy from sunlight and water. Identification of many species is difficult in that most individual plants have characteristics that have variables based on soil moisture, soil chemistry, and sunlight.

Because of the difficulty in learning and identifying different plant groups, specialists have emerged that study only a limited group of plants. These specialists revise the taxonomy and give us detailed descriptions and ranges of the various species.  Their results are published in technical journals and written with highly specialized words that apply to a specific group.

On the other hand, there are the nature publishers. These people and companies undertake the challenging task of trying to provide easy to use pictures and descriptions to identify those species.