XVIT. 1. THE BUTTON BUSH. 349 
that the ovary has, in some of the tribes, one, or rarely two 
ovaries, in others several. 
In this family there are two genera belonging to Massachu- 
setts :— 
Button Bush, Cephalanthus, with flowers in a globose head ; 
Partridge Berry, Muiichélla, flowers terminal, in twos, on a 
double ovary. 
In the sub-order, Cinchonea, the third sub-tribe, in the divis- 
ion of Torrey and Gray, is 
CEPHALA/NTHEX,—distinguished by its flowers and fruit being 
sessile and densely aggregated on a globose receptacle, the fruit 
dry and divisible into two or four parts. 
XVII. 1. BUTTON BUSH. CHPHALA’NTAHUS. IL. 
American shrubs, with oval or lanceolate, opposite or ternate 
leaves, short stipules, and flowers crowded on a globular, hairy 
receptacle, with a calyx tube in the shape of an inverted py- 
ramid, the border four-toothed, a tubular four-cleft corolla, four 
stamens, fruit inversely pyramidal, leathery, two- to four-celled, 
separating from the base to the summit into two to four, closed, 
one-seeded portions. 
Tue Burton Buss. River Buss. C. occidentalis. L. 
Figured in Barton’s Flora, 1IJ, Plate 91. 
The button bush is found along the banks of slow streams, 
forming little islets in muddy ponds, and in other situations in 
which its roots and the lower part of its stem are immersed in 
water for a considerable portion of the year. From stout, con- 
torted roots, often several inches in diameter, and from large, 
prostrate, root-like trunks, it rises with an erect or sinuous 
stem, to the height of from four to ten feet. On the recent 
shoots the bark is of a bright, polished, copper color, or olive 
green, or reddish bronze, with a few brown dots, and turns 
sradually to a light brown. Afterwards, it begins to crack, 
and fiom brown or purplish turns to a dark granite gray. ‘T’he 
bark on the older stems is cracked, rough and gray, and often 
