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 

 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. 



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 i 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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