Description
C. erectus is usually a dense multiple-trunked shrub, 1–4 m (3.3–13 ft) tall, but can grow into a tree up to 20 m (66 ft) or more tall, with a trunk up to 1 m (3.3 ft) in diameter. The United States National Champion green buttonwood is 35 ft (11 m) tall, has a spread of 70 ft (21 m), and a circumference of 207 in (530 cm). The bark is thick and has broad plates of thin scales which are gray to brown. The twigs are brittle, and angled or narrowly winged in cross-section. The leaves are alternately arranged, simple and oblong, 2–7 cm (0.79–2.8 in) long (rarely to 10 cm/3.9 in long) and 1–3 cm (0.39–1.2 in) broad, with a tapering tip and an entire margin. They are dark green and shiny on top, and paler with fine silky hairs underneath, and have two salt glands at the base of each leaf. The fruits are button-like (from which the common names derive), 5–8 mm (0.20–0.31 in) diameter, with no petals; they are produced in stalked panicles of 35-56 flowers. The fruit is a cluster of red to brown, small scaly, two-winged cone-like seeds, 5–15 mm (0.20–0.59 in) long. The seed heads burst when ripe, and the seeds are dispersed by water.
It is generally found growing in brackish water in tidal lagoons and bays, but can grow in inland habitats, with records at up to 745 m (2,444 ft) altitude in Costa Rica.
Read more about this topic: Conocarpus Erectus
Famous quotes containing the word description:
“He hath achieved a maid
That paragons description and wild fame;
One that excels the quirks of blazoning pens.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“I was here first introduced to Joe.... He was a good-looking Indian, twenty-four years old, apparently of unmixed blood, short and stout, with a broad face and reddish complexion, and eyes, methinks, narrower and more turned up at the outer corners than ours, answering to the description of his race. Besides his underclothing, he wore a red flannel shirt, woolen pants, and a black Kossuth hat, the ordinary dress of the lumberman, and, to a considerable extent, of the Penobscot Indian.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Do not require a description of the countries towards which you sail. The description does not describe them to you, and to- morrow you arrive there, and know them by inhabiting them.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)