Buttonbush

Buttonbush produces perfectly spherical white flowers about an inch across, bristling with protruding styles so they look like pincushions. Cephalanthus occidentalis is a native shrub growing 5 to 12 feet tall and wide in full sun to part sun, hardy from Zone 5 through Zone 8. Bloom comes in midsummer, when little else is flowering, and butterflies come to the flowers in numbers through the display. Bees and hummingbirds come to them too, and buttonbush is a host plant for spring azure caterpillars. Round seedheads follow the flowers, turning reddish brown and persisting into winter. Waterfowl and shorebirds eat the seeds. This grows wild in swamps, pond margins, and stream edges, and it tolerates standing water better than almost any shrub sold, which makes it a first choice for a rain garden, a pond bank, or a low spot that never drains. It handles moderate road salt and clay. Deer leave it alone.