What does buttonwood mean?
Buttonwood is the common American name for the American sycamore (Platanus occidentalis), one of the largest hardwood trees native to eastern North America. It grows along rivers and floodplains and is instantly recognizable by its strikingly mottled bark, which flakes away in patches to reveal smooth surfaces of white, tan, and green, and by its broad, maple-like leaves and spherical seed balls. The name is purely descriptive — the hard wood was once used for buttons, among many other practical purposes. Beyond botany, the word holds a famous place in American financial history: on May 17, 1792, twenty-four stockbrokers signed an informal trading pact under a buttonwood tree at 68 Wall Street in New York, an event remembered as the Buttonwood Agreement and regarded as the founding moment of the New York Stock Exchange. Today the term survives both in everyday speech about the tree itself and as an evocative shorthand for the streetwise, old-school ethos of Wall Street trading.
The American sycamore (Platanus occidentalis), a large deciduous North American tree of the plane family, noted for its exfoliating, camouflage-patterned bark and ball-shaped fruit clusters.
"Floodplain forests across the eastern United States are often dominated by towering buttonwoods."
Used almost exclusively in North America; British speakers typically refer to the same genus as 'plane trees'.
Historically, the specific buttonwood tree on Wall Street beneath which twenty-four brokers signed the 1792 agreement that established what became the New York Stock Exchange.
"Financial writers often invoke the buttonwood as a symbol of Wall Street's informal beginnings."
This sense appears mainly in historical and financial writing.
Standard plural, used when referring to multiple trees of this kind.
"The riverbank was lined with buttonwoods, their pale trunks glowing in the afternoon light."
Wall Street got its start under a tree: 24 brokers signed the Buttonwood Agreement beneath a buttonwood tree in 1792, founding what became the New York Stock Exchange.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of buttonwood
Buttonwood is an English compound formed from 'button' plus 'wood', applied to the American sycamore because its dense, firm timber was commonly used to carve buttons. The element 'button' derives from Middle English 'botoun', borrowed from Old French 'boton', meaning a bud or knob, ultimately related to the verb 'bouter' ('to push'). The compound arose in colonial America, where settlers named familiar trees after their practical uses, giving us parallel coinages such as 'shoemaker's wood' style names for other species.
How buttonwood is actually used
Chiefly an American term; in Britain the same genus is generally called simply 'plane' or 'sycamore'. The word carries strong historical resonance for Americans because of its association with the origins of Wall Street. In botanical contexts it appears alongside the formal name Platanus occidentalis.
Easily confused with buttonwood
Buttonbush (Cephalanthus occidentalis) is a small wetland shrub with spherical white flower clusters, whereas the buttonwood is a very large tree of the plane-tree family.