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Siberian dogwood has conflicting fire-resistance ratings, so it cannot be called reliably resistant.
A Northeast China laboratory study places Siberian dogwood among the ten taxa with the worst fire resistance. Its authors ranked litter leaves from 55 taxa by analyzing moisture, ignition point, ash, heat of combustion, and extractives. Michigan State University Extension reaches the opposite practical conclusion, listing Cornus alba as wildfire-resistant and recommended for Michigan’s climate. The disagreement therefore crosses both method and setting: one judgment comes from measured litter-leaf traits, while the other is an expert-curated landscape recommendation for the Great Lakes.
A separate test recorded live leaves reaching flaming at 263°C. That figure describes an ignition-temperature observation under a particular testing setup. The FLAMITS database does not apply a common threshold that turns such measurements into resistant or flammable ratings, so 263°C cannot resolve the dispute by itself.
Siberian dogwood is a shrub in the Cornaceae family, hardy in USDA zones 3a through 7b and introduced in Illinois. For Michigan landscaping, the extension recommendation supports its use as a wildfire-resistant plant. The laboratory ranking still gives reason for caution, especially because it places the shrub at the unfavorable end of a broad comparison rather than merely somewhere in the middle. The most defensible conclusion is that its fire resistance depends on which question is being asked: landscape suitability in Michigan or the measured fire-related traits of its litter leaves.
Michigan State University Extension Bulletin E2948 is explicitly a list of wildfire-resistant landscape plants for Michigan and includes a Michigan-native field. FireApproved publishes 221 exact GBIF owners from 226 represented source rows and holds 15 complex or non-exact rows. This dated publication scope is not a current site-suitability determination.
2. Why this plant is relevant here
State distribution
Documented in MI.
Native range
Introduced / established
1 sourced range or established record. This is not an invasive warning.
USDA hardiness
Documented range 3–7.
3. Legal, ecological, and broader status
Legal-list status
Seed-list status
Reported invasive here
Broader regional context
Federal context
How to read this page
The status above is computed from the cited rows below: independent recommendations can support a fire-resistant result, an avoid row can produce keep-away, and disagreement stays visible as conflict. Placement notes preserve each source’s own scheme rather than translating unlike rules into one scale. This is evidence about a plant, not permission to plant it in every part of the defensible space; Zone 0 remains noncombustible.
Native and introduced range evidence
These are exact U.S. botanical-area records from the cited range source. Native and
introduced describe biogeographic relationship, not fire performance or planting approval.
Doubtful and extinct rows stay visible but do not count as current presence.
The lossless worldwide derivative is retained once in the research corpus; object pages repeat only exact U.S. areas needed by the local lens. The JSON twin carries the same page assertions.
Plant hardiness evidence
These values describe the plant source. Your ZIP zone comes from the separate 2023 USDA
Plant Hardiness Zone Map. Whole-zone values stay whole-zone, and a single unresolved value
is not treated as a tolerance range. Different source boundaries stay separate: overlapping
statements are compared independently, while only ranges with no shared zone are called a conflict.
Grouped by what each source concluded. Primary evidence rated the plant itself
(a lab, field program, or original curation); corroboration compiled or
republished another source's rating and resolves to its root lineage.
2 cited rows from this source; its identity, lineage and tier are stated once.
Primary study Shan2008: Shan, Y., Liu, N., & Shu, L. (2008). Flammability ranking of foliage species by factor analysis of physical and chemical pyric properties. Fire and Materials: An International Journal, 32, 371-382.
Shared row context: plant part leaves; fuel live; predrying no; site Shan2008-1; sampling ND.
“temperature at flaming (°C): 263”
FLAMITS record 12616; Ignitability measurement; device ignition temperature tester.
“calorific value (kcal/kg): 4570.74”
FLAMITS record 12617; Combustibility measurement; device calorimeter.
