Biomass equations for flowering dogwood, Cornus florida L

Cornus florida L. (flowering dogwood) is a widespread, often abundant understory tree in most deciduous and mixed forest types of the eastern United States and southeastern Canada. Despite a number of studies focusing on the importance of C. florida in forest nutrient cycling (e.g., Thomas 1968, Day and McGinty 1975, Kost and Boerner 1985), predictive biomass equations for this species are absent from the major biomass equation compilations (Telfer 1969, Roussopoulos and Loomis 1979, Tritton and Hornbeck 1982, Smith and Brand 1983). Thus, estimates of C. florida biomass have been based on general hardwood equations or direct harvest (Day and McGinty 1975). In order to produce biomass equations for C. florida , and to evaluate the influence of differences in forest microsite conditions on C. florida allometric relations, the author harvested aboveground portions of twenty C. florida trees ranging from 1.85-7.25 cm in diameter breast height (dbh) during late September 1983.