By Susan Milius
The fastest flower in the west, or anywhere else, is a woodland wildflower of North America called bunchberry dogwood, says a research team with a really fast camera.
A bunchberry dogwood (Cornus canadensis) bears flowers much like those of the beloved ornamental dogwood tree, but the entire bunchberry stands hardly knee high. Its tiny flowers span only a few millimeters and cluster at the center of four white, leaflike structures that casual observers mistake for petals.