BUTTONBUSH 



Cephalanthus Occident alis L. 



Summer Along the Imckwater shores of the river, the buttonbush 



River swamps puts out its honey balls for midsummer bees. Button- 

 bu;-h is a low sliriib of the wet lands, of the black, caked, 

 alluvial soil remaining- after floods or, its roots in the water of a black 

 swamp, spreads bright green leaves to the hot sunshine and sends rich 

 fragrance into the thick, swamp air. 



There in the swamp, there along the river, when midsummer makes 

 low water and muddy shores, the buttonbush is part of a picture of that 

 wild country. Here tlie green heron nests in an overhanging willow ; here 

 beneath the buttonbushes the young wood ducks come to hide after a 

 swim in the shallows ; here in the bushes themselves the tiger swallowtails 

 come to si]) buttonbush nectar. Kedstarts chitter endlessly all day \oT\g 

 in the tall maples along the river ; a water snake slithers across the mud 

 and beneath the buttonbushes, winds itself up in the branches and waits 

 for a prothonotary warblei- to pass singing that way. This is the kind 

 of country the buttonlnish belongs to, is part of — and foiTns that impor- 

 tant middle strata above the low plants and the tall trees in the river 

 swamps. 



Buttonbush is in the same family as coffee and cinchona (quinine), 

 partridge berry, bedstraw, and bluets, a most diverse family which comes 

 botauically between the plantains and the honeysuc-kles. Buttonbush has 

 the typical opposite leaves of the iladder family. The flowers spring at 

 right angles from the axils of the leaves and are composed of a globular 

 mass of tubular creamy white, extremely fragrant flowers whose long 

 protruding stamens and pistils give each flower-ball a piucushiony, fluffy 

 appearance of great beauty. 



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