AZALEA. 



Bot. Mag. t. 433. — Subalpine districts of Caucasus, common in 

 beechwoods and oakwoods. Georgia, Asia Minor. 



A hairy deciduous shrub, 3 or 4 feet high, tolerably erect, but much 

 branched ; with a pale brown deciduous bark, and leaves clustered 

 about the extremities of the branches. Leaves appearing about the 

 same time as the flowers, oblong-lanceolate, acute, very much wrinkled, 

 thin and papery, ciliated, roughish on the upper side, smooth under- 

 neath. Flowers in terminal cymes, 20 or more together, about as long 

 as the rough hairy stalks. Sepals linear-oblong, hairy. Corolla bright 

 yellow, infundibuliform, downy, with a wide oblique limb, the segments 

 of which are ovate, acute, reflexed at the edges. Stamens 5, hairy at 

 the base above the middle, about as long as the corolla. — Dioscorides 

 asserted that the honey collected about Heraclea in Pontus produced 

 alienation of mind with profuse perspiration ; and it has been believed 

 that the pestilence which attacked the soldiers of Xenophon in the 

 famous retreat of the 10,000 was caused by the quantity of this honey 

 then eaten. Tournefort ascribed the poison to the flowers of Rhodo- 

 dendron ponticum and Azalea pontica. But Pallas is of opinion that 

 the latter alone was the cause. He says that the effects of the Euxine 

 honey are like those of Lolium temulentum and occur in a country 

 where no Rhododendron grows. The natives are well aware of the 

 deleterious qualities of the plant, and it is related that goats which 

 browse on the leaves, before the pastures are green, suffer in conse- 

 quence, and moreover that cattle and sheep perish. 



LEDUM. 



Calyx minute, 4-toothed. Petals 5, spreading. Stamens 

 5-10, exserted; anthers opening by 2 pores at the apex. Cap- 

 sules ovate, 5-celled, 5-valved, stalked, dehiscing at the base. 

 Seeds winged at both ends. 



780. L. latifolium Ait. Keio. ii. 65. Jacq. ic. rar. iii. t. 464. 

 Willd. sp. pi. ii. 602. Torrey Jl. i. 437. — L. gronlandicum 

 JRetz. prodr. scand. ii. 493. — Sphagnous swamps in various parts 

 of the United States, Hudson's Bay, Labrador, Newfoundland, 

 Greenland. 



A small evergreen shrub. Stem irregularly branched ; branches 

 woolly. Leaves alternate, subsessile, about 2 inches long, and from 4- 

 to i an inch broad, obtuse, covered on the under surface with a dense 

 ferruginous wool; margin folded in. Flowers large, in dense terminal 

 corymbs ; pedicels filiform, pubescent. Calyx very minute. Corolla 

 white ; petals obovate, obtuse. Stamens about as long as the corolla ; 

 filaments slender, smooth ; anthers small, opening by two simple ter- 

 minal pores. Ovary roundish; style straight, about as long as the 

 stamens ; stigma small, obtuse. Capsule ovate-oblong, subpubescent ; 

 valves separating at the base, with the margins inflexed and connivent ; 

 receptacles linear, extending into the cells of the capsule. Seeds 

 minute, terminating in a membrane at each extremity. Torrey. — The 

 leaves infused in beer render it unusually heady, producing headach, 

 nausea, and even delirium. They have nevertheless been used, it is 

 said, with advantage in tertian agues, dysentery and diarrhoea. Pallas. 

 379 



