BLUE RIDGE BLOSSOMS. 147 



name of Laurel to the Rhododendron. It dots the meadows and the 



woodlands with flecks of white. It borders the streams, often like a 



great white wall. Upon the hillsides it often grows in masses which 



at a little distance, look like banks of snow. It often forms dense 

 thickets of vast area, and individual growths not infrequently attain 



the size of trees. I have seen it with a height of more than twenty 

 feet and a trunk diameter of over ten inches. 



Of the Rhododendrons I found eight — four classed as Azaleas, and 

 four as Rhododendrons proper. The first of the group to come is the 

 R. calendulaccum. It may well be doubted if, outside the tropics, 

 there be a more gorgeous floral display than that presented by a giant 

 bush of Flame-colored Azalea. The blossoms shade through all grada- 

 tions of red and yellow, from the deepest crimson to the palest buff. 

 In tramping the hills during May and early June, one easily gets the 

 impression of an endless number of smokeless camp-fires. Sometimes 

 the blaze is small and near the ground. Sometimes it shoots up into 

 a great fiery mass of twelve or fifteen feet in height, and almost as 

 much in diameter. Flame-colored is the fitting name for R. calendii- 

 laceuiii. Late in ]\Iay or early in June, high up on the mountain tops, 

 comes the pink-purple R Catazvbiensc. Here and there a bush may be 

 found on the valley-levels. But its home is the mountain-tops, and 

 them it robes in marvellous beauty. At about the same time there 

 blossoms, in certain localities, a small white Rhododendron, not given 

 in my copy of Gray. Nor does Gray give the R. piiiictatiini which 

 bears, in size and color, the same relation to R. Cataivbiense that the 

 small white one bears to R. inaximitin, the rival of Catawbiense. In 

 its growth the iiiaxinnini is the grandest of them all. I have seen it 

 reaching a height of thirty feet and over, with a trunk of tree-like 

 proportions. But those who have decided which of the two — the 

 Catawbiense or the maxiiinim., bears the more beautiful blossoms, have 

 succeeded in a direction in which, as yet, I have failed. But, for me, 

 like the wine at Gana, the best is reserved until the last. The season 

 of Rhododendrons closes with my favorite. Along the banks of the 

 larger streams there grows the pure-white, bell -shaped Azalea. Its 

 exquisite purity of color; its delicate grace of structure; and its rich, 

 though dainty fragrance, make it for me the flower of flowers — a 

 flower for saints — a flower to serve equally well for a bridal-wreath or 

 a burial-cross. 



All these, and many more, are bits of life and color and fragrance 

 which deck the valleys and clothe the hillsides of the most beautiful 

 region in the United States — the mountains of western North Carolina. 



