Cornus Florida, our native dogwood.
No, it doesn’t look like this in Connecticut yet. This image is from last May. But this is the dogwood that I am talking about. It is dripping sap puddles onto our driveway.
I have recalled seeing such a thing in the past, but not quite as pronounced as this year. Perhaps that’s because–for a change–it has been very dry so the puddles have a chance to get large before rain or snow wash them away. This is a tiny, fresh puddle.
This is the sort of thing that I am talking about. These dark spots are the dried sap puddles.
And here’s the actual sap dripping from the tree. It’s rather odd.
I am used to maples making a mess. But not my dogwood!
Gardendaze 
While collecting sap from the native bigleaf maples, I read that birch sugar products were briefly a fad in Alaska. The species that provided the sugar is not even native. This was several years ago, so I wonder what ever came of it. This is not a good region for sugaring. Actually, it is not worth the bother. Spring arrives so suddenly that the foliage pops almost immediately after the sap starts to run.
After I wrote this post, the New York Times had an article on how maple sugaring was yet another pandemic activity–except that one really shouldn’t try to boil all that sap down in the house because it could cause so much steam it might loosen wallpaper or some such thing.
So I am not entirely sure how the average person might go about sugaring. When our neighbors tried it with our maples, they boiled outside. But not everyone has a yard for that–and it’s been so dry here that they’re discouraging burning this year.
We must have read the same article about birch sap, although try to find enough birches these days to sugar. They are definitely endangered around here.
Karla