ANDROMEDA MARIANA. 



STAGGER-BUSH. _^ 



NATURAL ORDER, ERICACEAE. 



Andromeda Mariana, Linmus. — Glabrous, or slightly pubescent, two to {our feet high; 

 leaves oblong or oval, obtuse or acute at both ends, entire, loosely veiny (one to three 

 inches long); fascicles of nodding flowers racemose on naked shoots; corolla cylindra- 

 ceous-campanulate, with slightly narrowed orifice, white or pale rose color (almost half 

 an inch long) ; filaments hairy outside, their very small setose appendage below the sum- 

 mit occasionally obsolete or wanting ; capsule ovate-pyramidal, truncate at the contracted 

 apex; the placentx low down. (Gray's Synoplical Flora of Noith America. See also 

 Gray's Manual of the Botany of the Northern United States, Chapman's Flora of the 

 Southern Uniled States, m\& Wood's Class-Dook of Botany.) 



NDROMEDA was a fair Ethiopian princess, who, ac- 

 cording to the pretty story told by Ovid in the fourth 

 book of his " Metamorphoses," was rescued from a terrible fate, 

 and afterwards married by Perseus, the celebrated Greek hero. 

 It is, of course, impossible to decide at this late day whether our 

 princess had the proverbial Ethiopian skin, or whether she was 

 " fair " in the Caucasian sense. But, however that may be, our 

 poets and painters represent her as having been among the 

 fairest of the fair ; and if this be true, she certainly would have 

 no reason to be ashamed of her namesake, Andromeda Ma- 

 riana, which is one of the purest and fairest of the princesses 

 of the kingdom of Flora. Our picture is a good representation 

 of the flower, but no artist can do justice to its beauty as seen 

 growing in favorable seasons in the rich, peaty, half-swampy 

 barrens of New Jersey. Snow is white, but the whiteness of 

 these flowers excels it, owing to the delicate, wa.xy texture of 

 their corollas. In Pennsylvania, where the plant is generally 

 found in dryer soil, or sometimes even on rocks, as for example 



