The physical manner in which the inflorescences on our new cultivar are displayed is unique as the flower heads are held erect on the rapidly elongating peduncles in the spring at nearly 90 degrees. When the telescoped vegetative bracts that protected the over-wintering flower buds have fallen, the rapidly growing peduncles elongate upward and the rapidly growing narrow pink-red floral bracts which are lightly attached at their apex enlarge upward until, with further growth, the floral bracts expand at an increased angle and look like butterflies perched on the vertical peduncles. The deep-cup shape of the floral bracts is unique among the comparative pink/red bracted clones of C. kousa ‘Rosea’, ‘Radiant Rose’, and ‘Heart Throb’ in the trade Its floral bracts are larger and darker than the C. kousa in the trade and holds its color longer than those of C. kousa which usually turn white. This hybrid ‘KN144-2’ is a winter hardy, attractive dark/pink red floral bracted tree with a beautiful round densely-branched growth habit than other C. kousa cultivars. It is more vigorous, dense, more rounded and fully branched, and is slightly taller than wide as compared to those presently in the trade. The bracts of this new cultivar are believed by the inventor to be larger and darker pink/red than those of any of the other pink/red cutivars of C. kousa.
