# wood of the true cross?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wood-of-the-true-cross/6578>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [January 25, 2000, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wood-of-the-true-cross/6578 "2000-01-25T16:14:00Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 18

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![torq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dfb087/32.png) [@torq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/torq)\
**Post date:** [January 27, 2000, 6:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wood-of-the-true-cross/6578/18 "2000-01-27T06:53:00Z")

</div>

The dogwood is the state tree (whatever that means) of Missouri, so I’ve heard the dogwood story a lot.

Obviously it makes no sense whatsoever. Dogwoods didn’t suddenly mutate to their present form about 1965 years ago; if they had, you’d think there’d be some kind of record of it: “Someone stole the dogwood in front of the palace last night and replaced it with this funny-looking little scrawny twisty tree.”

I don’t know if dogwood is even native to the Jerusalem area, but I suspect that it’s not.

Is there a word for legends that were never INTENDED to be believed? The best I can come up with is “tall tales,” and the dogwood story doesn’t really seem to fit in alongside Pecos Bill or Paul Bunyan.

---

_[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wood-of-the-true-cross/6578)._