DENDROLOGY. 



191 



quantity of gin made from the berries in the United States is 

 small compared with what is imported from Holland. Its leaves 

 are found to be stimulant, diuretic and emmenagogue, and have 

 been used with some success for rheumatism, dropsy and 

 catamenial obstructions, in doses of one or two scruples. 



KALMIA. 



Decandria Monogypia. Linn. Pihododendroe. Jess. Tonic, narcotic. 



Mountain Laurel. Kalmia latifolia. 



The Mountain Laurel is 

 a large shrub, which indiffer- 

 ently bears the names of 

 Mountain Laurel, Laurel, 

 Ivy and Calico Tree. The 

 west end of Long Island, 

 and the vicinity of Pough- 

 keepsie, which lies on the 

 river Hudson, between the 

 42d and 43d degrees of 

 latitude, may be considered 

 as the northern limit of this 

 tree. It abounds in New 

 Jersey and Pennsylvania. 

 Proceeding thence south- 



PLATE XLVII. 

 Fig. 1. A leaf. Fig. 3. A seed vessel. 



west, it is found along the 



steep banks of all the rivers 

 whifih rise in the Alleghanies ; but it is observed to become less 

 common in following these streams from their source, towards 

 the Ohio and Mississippi on one side, and towards the ocean on 

 the other. It is rare in Kentucky and in West Tennessee, and 

 in the Southern States it disappears entirely when the rivers enter 

 the low country, where the pine-barrens commence. Although 

 the mountain laurel abounds along the rivers of the Middle and 

 Southern States, it is proportionally less common than upon the 

 Alleghany Mountains, from Pennsylvania to the termination of 



