buttonwood
nounEtymology From button + wood.
› The common name given to at least three…
1
The mangrove tree (Conocarpus erectus, family Combretaceae) a tropical and subtropical species.
- On the opposite bank was a fresh ’gator wallow. The mud had been packed smooth where they turned and rolled their hard bodies. Penny dropped to his haunches behind a buttonwood bush.1938, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, chapter 24, in The Yearling, New York: Grosset & Dunlap, page 303:
2
The American sycamore or American plane tree (Platanus occidentalis, family Platanaceae).
- 1824, Washington Irving (as Geoffrey Crayon), “Wolfert Webber, or Golden Dreams” in Tales of a Traveller, Volume 2, Part 4, Philadelphia: H.C. Carey & I. Lea, p. 55, Thus quietly and comfortably did this excellent family vegetate under the shade of a mighty buttonwood tree, which by little and little grew so great as entirely to overshadow their palace.
- 1835, Fanny Kemble, Journal of a Residence in America, Paris: A. and W. Galignani, entry dated Sunday, 13 January, 1833, p. 234, When near, the trees look singularly deplorable and untidy, although at the distance, the red-brown of the faded oaks mingling with the bright, vivid, green cedars, and here and there a silver-barked buttonwood tree raising its white delicate branches from among them, produce a very agreeable and harmonious blending to the eye.
3
California sycamore or western sycamore (Platanus racemosa).
- Derived terms
- Florida buttonwood, Harvey's buttonwood, swamp buttonwood
- Related terms
- Conocarpus erectus, Platanus occidentalis, Platanus racemosa