Joshua L. Riley

My best friend took this photo of a grand old dogwood in his back yard.

They are the queens of the forest -- beautiful trees of diminutive stature that form the understory of woods from Maine to Florida and from the Atlantic to the Mississippi. I'm speaking of the glorious flowering dogwood, Cornus florida. The West Coast has its own version, the Pacific dogwood, or Cornus nuttallii, which lives west of the Rockies, between southern British Columbia and southern California.

Why am I blathering about trees today? Well, for one thing, it has been a beautiful and perfect week in Washington and all the dogwood blooms are bursting open. And, as you know by now, I'm always looking for some good news to add to the blogosphere. (BTW: check out this site I click on daily -- that's how dorky I am.)

But, unfortunately, it's not all happy news when it comes to the dogwoods. A fungal disease called dogwood anthracnose, or dogwood blight, is slowly killing our native beauties. If you, like me, are a great fan and want to protect the dogwoods, check out the University of Tennessee's Dogwood Research Group. They've got tips for avoiding the blight, as well as a breeding program that's already developed a blight resistant dogwood called the Appalachian Spring.

Update: This just in from NPR's resident botanical chronicler, Ketzel Levine:

Delighted you're talking about trees... The anthracnose you mention -- and its devastation of East Coast forests -- took off in the late '80s/early '90s. But the good news is that the destruction has largely abated and the expected devastation never happened. Such clever, adaptive trees! Also thought you'd enjoy my piece and photos from last year on dogwoods, now that they're singing again this week...