Buttonbush -- Cephalanthus occidentalis - How to grow Buttonbush

Burttonbush likes it wet. This plant is a North American native with one of the widest range of any any plant I know. It is endemic from New Brunswick south to Florida, west to Minnesota, Nebraska, Okalahoma and New Mexico. Also found in Central California, Cuba and Mexico. Rarely do you find a plant with such a range. It lends one to think that the fruit, in this case a nutlet, might be considered haute cuisine by birds.

This medium sized (to 15 feet, with a spread of 12) shrub is in flower for a long period during the mid-summer, often for four to six weeks. This is good, because the rest of the year, it’s a fairly leggy non-descript unremarkable specimnen. No fall color, it doesn’t leaf out until May here, looking like it’s dead until well into the spring. The globose flowers with long white stiles are the striking part of the plant, and are worth growing it, if you have a wet boggy area in the yard. I have seen this plant growing right in the water in Long Pond, Delaware, which is the farthest north of a native stand of Bald Cypress.

Buttonbush is a member of the Madder family, Rubiaceae, along with Gardenia, Coffea and about four hundred other genera. The Latin genus name comes from the Greek: kephale for ‘head,’ and anthos for flower. The genus name refers to its nativity, the Western Hemisphere.

In the shrub border in partial shade, on the swampy end or in the creek, this plant could provide some very interesting summer accent. Bees seem to work it, and it lightens up a shady area quite nicely.

#buttonbush