bda_biodiversity's Identifications

Buttonwood, Button Mangrove – Conocarpus erectus is a versatile, sprawling, multiple-trunked shrub or tree with arching branches and spreading crown that grows in association with Red, Black and White Mangroves and provides protection from storms.
Leaves Alternate, leathery, with a pair of nodular salt-excreting glands on the leaf stalk near the base, and glands along the mid-vein on the underside of the leaf.
Flowers are tiny, green, no petals, borne in rounded, compact heads.
Fruits are scale-like, overlapping, one-seeded, aggregated in a cone-like head.
Seeds are dispersed by water.
Button-like flowers and fruits give it the name Buttonwood.
Wood is extremely hard, slow-burning and was used as fuel for cooking and making good quality charcoal.
Bark is high in tannin.
Green Buttonwood is being used increasingly as a hedge plant in Cayman. Silver Buttonwood occurs naturally in Cayman and is used in landscaping, particularly for hedges.
Flora of the Cayman Islands by George R. Proctor p.416
Kings 1938 - GC 27, GC 101, GC 137.
https://www.fnps.org/plant/conocarpus-erectus
May 19, 2024 Safehaven, North Sound Golf Club.