Common Buttonbush

Cephalanthus occidentalis L. Sp. PI. 95. 1753
Cephalanthns opposilifplius Moench, Meth. 487. 1794.
Cephalanthus occidentalis pubescens Raf. Med. Fl. 1: 101. 1828.
Cephalanthus occidentalis macrophyllus Raf. Med. Fl. 1: 101. 1828.
Cephalanthus occidentalis obtusifolius Raf. Med. Fl. 1: 102. 1828.
Cephalanthus occidentalis brachypodus DC. Prodr. 4: 539. 1830.
Cephalanthus acuminatus Raf. New Fl. 3: 25. 1838.
Cephalanthus obtusifolius Raf. New Fl. 3: 25. 1838.
Cephalanthus angustifolius Raf. Sylva Tell. 61. 1838. Not C. angustifolius Lour. 1790.
Cephalanthus occidentalis californicus Benth. PI. Hartw. 314. 1849.
Cephalanthus Berlandieri Wernham, Jour. Bot. 55: 175. 1917.
Cephalanthus Hansenii Wernham, Jour. Bot. 55: 176. 1917.
Shrub or small tree, sometimes 15 meters high, with a trunk 3 dm. in diameter, the branchlets slender, brown or grayish, glabrous or short-pilose, the internodes usually elongate; stipules 2-4 mm. long, deltoid, acute or acuminate, usually with glands along the margins; leaves opposite or ternate, the petioles stout or slender, 0.2-3 cm. long, glabrous or pilose, the blades ovate, oval-ovate, oval, ovate-oblong, oval-oblong, or narrowly lanceolate, 6-19 cm. long, 1-8.5 cm. wide, subcordate to rounded or sometimes acute at the base, abruptly or subabruptly longor short-acuminate at the apex, with an acute acumen, bright-green above, usually lustrous, glabrous or scaberulous, the venation plane or impressed, glabrous or pilose beneath, the lateral veins prominent, slender, arcuate, ascending at an angle of 45-60°; peduncles terminal and axillary, simple or branched, stout, 3-10 cm. long, glabrous; heads 6-12 mm. in diameter (excluding the corollas); bractlets filiform-clavate, pilose above; hypanthium and calyx together 2-3 mm. long, glabrous or sparsely long-pilose at the base, the calyx about 1 mm. long, shallowly 4-5-dentate, densely pubescent within, the lobes rounded, usually glandular; corolla 5-9 mm. long, glabrous outside, the 4 or 5 lobes ovate or oval, sparsely pubescent within, with a small black gland in each sinus; capsule 4-8 mm. long; seed solitary, brown, with a large white aril.
Type locality: North America.
Distribution: New Brunswick to Florida, Veracruz, and California; Cuba and the Isle of Pines; also in southern Asia.