Cute as a Button

— The saying may not come from this perennial shrub, but I can certainly see that it would apply to a Buttonbush shrub. In my last visit to the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, I thoroughly enjoyed seeing wildflowers that tend to be forgotten after spring is gone. In addition to Gregg’s Mistflower and Texas Bluebells, which I recently featured here, I also ran into these beautiful Buttonbush shrubs. Even though this shrub looks a bit like weeds, the round flowers may look like some science drawing of cells. The flowers are just about one to one-and-a-half inches (2.5 to 3.8 cm) in diameter, and they appear in clusters like you see in these two photos here. As you can see in the photo below, their color changes as they mature. They go into a reddish orange hue before turning black. This shrub attracts honeybees and hummingbirds.