168 Class X. Order I. 



causes them to resemble rows of teeth. Leaves on short petioles, 

 thin, oval serrulate, acute or acuminated, smooth, the veins a 

 little downy beneath. Flowers racemed, on the ends of the 

 branches, all pointing downwards. Pedicels short, smooth. 

 Bractes two, ovate, acuminate. Calyx of five acute segments, 

 variously coloured. Corolla white, oblong-oval, contracted at 

 the mouth ; the segments convex, diverging or re volute. Style 

 just exserted. Filaments converging. Anthers cleft, four awned. 

 Capsule globular, splitting into five incurved valves and support- 

 ed by the persistent bractes and calyx. Low woods, Roxbury. 

 Not common. June. 



171. RHODODENDRON. 



RHODODENDRON MAXIMUM. L. American Rose Bay. 



Bigelow, Medical Botany, PI. li. 



Leaves oblong, glabrous, paler beneath ; umbels 

 dense, terminal ; corollas somewhat bell shaped, pe- 

 tals rounded. 



A magnificent, flowering shrub, common in the mountainous 

 regious of the middle states, but more rare toward the north. 

 Several varieties of it are met with in different parts of the 

 country. The Rhododendron of the northern states is a large, 

 straggling shrub, very irregular in its mode of growth. The 

 bark is of a greyish colour, cracked and broken. Leaves in 

 tufts at the ends of the branches, evergreen, coriaceous, on 

 round, fleshy petioles, oblong oval, entire, revolute at the edges, 

 pale underneath. Both leaves and petioles, when young, are 

 covered with a light woolly substance. The flowers form a ter- 

 minal cluster or thyrsus immediately above the leaves, the 

 stalks and calyxes of which are covered with a glutinous pubes- 

 cence. Previous to its expansion, the whole bud forms a large 

 compound bud, resembling a strobilus or cone, each individual 

 flower-bud being covered by a rhomboidal bracte, which falls off 

 when the flower expands. Calyx small, of five unequal obtuse 

 segments. Corolla monopetalous, funnel shaped, with a short 

 tube, the border divided into five large, unequal segments, which 

 are white shaded with lake, the upper and largest having a col- 

 lection of orange coloured spots at its centre. Stamens declin- 



