Conocarpus erectus L.

The geographic range of Buttonwood includes the shores of central and southern Florida, including the Florida Keys; Bermuda; most of the West Indies; both coasts of continental tropical America from Mexico south through Central America and northern South America to Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands and Brazil; and tropical West Africa. (Little and Wadsworth 1964; Nettel et al. 2008)

Semple (1970) gives the distribution as "along the coasts of west tropical Africa, the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of tropical and subtropical North and South America and throughout the West Indies". Semple notes that pubescent-leaved individuals (as well as the typical glabrous, or smooth-leaved ones) are restricted to the northern West Indies, southern Florida, and northern Central America.

Buttonwood has been introduced to Hawaii at least twice and the silver-leaved variety sericeus is still commonly planted as an ornamental. The green-leaved variety was introduced to Oahu before 1910, possibly from Florida, and the variety sericeus was introduced to Oahu from the Bahamas in 1946. Both forms of Buttonwood have escaped cultivation and established small wild populations on some islands. In contrast to Red Mangrove, which was introduced to Hawaii and is now very common and widespread there, Buttonwood has not shown much tendency to spread beyong the initial introduction sites. In Hawaii it is cultivated and sparingly naturalized in coastal areas of Kauai, Oahu, Lanai, and Molokai. (Allen 1998 and references therein)

Árbol o arbusto.

Buttonwood is often shrubby in form (although it can grow to 6 meters or more in height) and usually grows on the landward side of tidal mangrove swamp forests. In Florida and the Caribbean, it is the only mangrove species with alternately arranged leaves. The lance-shaped or elliptic yellow-green leaves are long-pointed at both ends, leathery and slightly fleshy, 3 to 8 cm long and 1 to 3 cm wide. Leaves have slightly winged petioles, 0.5 to 1 cm long, with 2 dot-like glands. Leaf blade edges are untoothed and usually have several dot-like glands near vein angles on the lower surface. The fragrant greenish flowers are tiny, less than 2 mm across, and crowded in balls less than 6 mm in diameter in terminal and lateral clusters. Flowers are mostly bisexual, but some trees bear heads of male flowers. Purplish-brown rounded cone-like fruits are 1 cm in diameter and are composed of many scale-like 1-seeded fruits about 3 mm long. (Little and Wadsworth 1964)

Árbol pequeño o arbusto, hasta de 10 m de altura. Hojas simples, alternas, de 3 a 10 cm de largo por 1.5 a 3.5 cm de ancho, de lanceoladas a elípticas, con domacios en la unión de los nervios secundarios con el central y con 2 glándulas en la base, ambas características evidentes por el envés.