Dogwood is a tropical shrub in the legume family with its native roots in the West Indies, Mexico, South Texas, Central America, and parts of South America and the Pacific Northwest. The Mayans were known to use it for asthma and to reduce fevers. Western science, as well as the Eclectic physicians, used it for its pain relieving properties as early as the 1840s, where it was also prescribed for nervous conditions. It gained its nickname "fish poison tree" from the West Indian practice of ...(more)