ADDISONIA 17 
(Plate 169) 
CEPHALANTHUS OCCIDENTALIS 
Button-bush 
Native of North America 
Family RUBIACEAE MADDER Family 
Cephalanthus occidentalis I,. Sp. Pl. 95. 1753. 
With the single exception of the plant here described and illus- 
trated, all species of the madder family native in northern North 
America are herbaceous; in warm-temperate and tropical regions, 
however, this family is largely composed of shrubs and trees in 
many genera. ‘The button-bush inhabits wet grounds, preferring 
swamps, often growing in water more than a foot deep. It does 
not yield kindly to transplanting, except when young, and then 
only to situations similar to those in which it naturally exists. 
Its range extends from New Brunswick to southern Florida, west- 
ward to western Ontario, Wisconsin, Kansas, Arkansas, and New 
Mexico. 
Vaillant knew the plant as early as 1722 and called it Platano- 
cephalus, with reference to the similarity of its flower-heads to those 
of the plane-tree. Plukenet, in his “ Almagestum Botanicum”’ of 
1691, illustrated and briefly described the plant, noting its common 
name as buttonwood. It was grown in England as early as 1735 
and in Holland by 1740. 
The similarity of the English names buttonball and buttonwood, 
applied to different plants resembling each other in their flower- 
heads, has led to some confusion; “‘ buttonwood,” used by Plukenet 
in 1691, has come to be generally applied to the American plane 
(Platanus occidentalis). Many other English names are used 
locally for Cephalanthus, among them honey-balls, globe-flower, 
pond-dogwood, pin-ball, swamp-wood, and river-bush. Our illus- 
tration was painted from a wild bush in the New York Botanical 
Garden. 
The bark has been used in medicine as a supposed febrifuge. 
The genus Cephalanthus, characterized by dense globose heads 
of small flowers, whence the name (Greek, head-flower), has the 
plant here described as its typical species; another (Cephalanthus 
Hanseni Wernham) occurs in Arizona, California, and northern 
Mexico; there are two or three other Mexican species, one Cuban, 
