House and Garden 
BUTTON BUSH BLOSSOMS 
AND 
SEED PODS 
kinds of catkins; the plainer 
and less attractive kind is 
the female or pistillate, and 
the softer kind with yellow 
anthers, like 
gold headed 
pins, are the 
staminate and 
on every passing breeze. In the same local¬ 
ity as the foregoing, we may find the button 
bush {Cephalanthus occidentahs), whose 
creamy-white honey balls nod and sway 
among their glossy, dark-green foliage dur¬ 
ing July and August. These delightful blos¬ 
soms, which are seen by so few that their 
beauty is seldom appreciated, emit a fra¬ 
grance that faintly suggests the jessamine, 
and seem almost tropical in their form 
and perfume. “ Little cushions full of pins ” 
some writer on flowers humorously calls 
them; and while the comparison is very 
homely, it is, nevertheless, a rather appro¬ 
priate one. 
d o fully appreciate the structural details of 
one of these flowers, you should examine 
one of these “buttons” under the micro¬ 
scope. The ball will be found to he com¬ 
posed of hundreds of tiny florets, each 
with a well of nectar in its tiny tube. These 
are so artfully placed that only those 
insects with long, slender tongues can 
obtain it with anything like facility. The 
pins in the mimic cushion are the pistils, 
d'hese are composed of parts known as the 
style, stigma and ovary. Lhe style is the 
central portion, the stigma the top and the 
base is the ovary. Before each miniature bud 
had opened, all its pollen — the life-giving 
element of flowers secreted by the small 
bodies known as anthers — was released from 
ntale, or staminate. d he 
pistillate flo\vers are usually found on separate 
trees: so, when you select a specimen for 
cultivation, be sure that your cuttings are 
from staminate trees. It is strange that a 
shrub so hardy and so easily cultivated, and 
whose buds are so attractive for decorative 
purposes should he so neglected. 
Found in the same locality as the pussy 
w'illow is the common sw-amp alder. It is a 
low shrub about eight feet high and is always 
found hugging tightly the hanks of the streams, 
where its roots reach down to the water and are 
constantly submerged. Its buds are the first to 
respond to the call of the vernal season. All 
through the fall and winter—in fact, as soon 
as the leaves have fallen—the alder bushes are 
covered with firm, crimson-tipped, green cat¬ 
kins which hang stiffly from their stems. Now, 
when spring comes and rouses the buds from 
their lethargy, these same catkins loosen their 
stiffened ]oints and become dainty, flexible 
tassels, w hich dust their golden pollen in clouds 
mountain laurel {Kalmia latijolia) 
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