RUBIACEAE MADDER FAMILY 
BUTTONBUSH 
Cephalanthus occidentalis L. 
| The Buttonbush is a shrub 3-12 feet high, or sometimes a tree 
up to 20 feet. It is an excellent honey plant, often called Honey 
Balls because its fragrant nectar-producing flowers are borne in 
dense spherical heads. It oh 
grows in swamps and low “ 
places along streams from 
New Brunswick to Ontario 
and Wisconsin, south to 
Florida, Texas and Cali- 
fornia. Most of the leaves 
are opposite but usually 
some are in whorls of 3. 
The sessile white 
flowers bloom from June 
to September. 
Calyx and cor- 
olla, the latter 
much the long- 
er, are tubular 
and 4-lobed. 4 
The 4 stamens are inserted on the throat of the corolla and have 
very short filaments. The style is very slender and about twice 
the length of the corolla. The fruit is dry and 1 or 2-seeded. 
Another group of common plants belonging to the Madder family 
is that of Bedstraw or Galium. Of the many kinds, perhaps the com- 
monest is Cleavers or Goose Grass, Galium Aparine L., abundant 
in rich woods. The square stem is weak and sprawling, and on the 
angles has prickles that curve downward. The flowers are very small 
and white, and the fruits are densely covered with hooked bristles 
to form burs. The oblanceolate leaves are in sixes or eights. 
Two other Illinois members of this genus are the Marsh Bedstraw, 
Galium palustre L., and the Shining Bedstraw, Galium concinnum 
T. & G. The first lives in wet meadows and swales, the second in dry 
open woods. The 16-inch stem of Marsh Bedstraw is little branched 
and slightly rough on the angles, that of the wood plant is low, much 
branched, even matting, and minutely but distinctly rough on the 
angles. The linear-elliptic, blunt-tipped and smoothish-margined 
leaves of G. palustre are grouped by twos to sixes at the nodes, but 
usually by fours, whereas the always linear leaves of G. concinnum 
are in whorls of 6 and their edges are rough. The large corolla of 
Marsh Bedstraw is always white but the minute one of Shining 
Bedstraw varies to rose tinged. 
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