Only found out recently you can eat these. And actually they have a nice sweet, smooth almost dessert like flavor. Weird texture though. Lots of seeds. How you eat them is by breaking them open and eating the flesh inside. The skin has an unpleasant flavor, though it's also edible. Kousa fruit is commonly eaten in Japan, as well as being used as an ingredient in desserts and wine. The young leaves of this tree are also sometimes eaten.

Before you try them just make sure the tree you're harvesting from is a Kousa. American Dogwoods bare fruit as well, but theirs is mildly poisonous. Its easy to tell the difference, as the fruit on American Dogwood is smaller and smooth. By contrast Kousa fruit is larger and has a bumpy outer texture.

Fun fact: The white petals on Dogwoods in general aren't actually petals, but modified leaves

Kousa Dogwood is a common ornamental tree in the United States, but it's uncommon for Americans to eat the fruit