N, ORD.~ERICACE A. 101 
Tribe.—ANDROMEDEA. 
GENUS.—E P1G AA,* LINN, 
SEX, SYST.—DECANDRIA MONOGYNIA, 
EPIG ALA. 
TRAILING ARBUTUS. 
SYN.—EPIGA#A REPENS, LINN. 
COM, NAMES.—TRAILING ARBUTUS, MAY FLOWER, GRAVEL PLANT, 
GRAVEL WEED, GROUND LAUREL, MOUNTAIN PINK, WINTER 
PINK. 
A TINCTURE OF THE FRESH PLANT EPIGAA REPENS, LINN. 
Description.—This fragrant spring flower, blossoming amid the verdure of 
its previous year’s growth, is prostrate or trailing* from a mass of perennial, 
red-brown, fibrous voots thickly beset with a tangle of rootlets; the s¢em is 
rounded and conspicuously hairy, the bark and hairs having a rusty color. 
Leaves alternate, evergreen, reticulate, ovate-cordate and entire, from 1 to 2 inches 
long, and relatively one-half as wide, the edges and under surface rusty hairy. 
Inflorescence apical or axillary; the flowers spring from dry, scaly bracts, and have 
a delicate pink, a deep rose-color, or are in some cases white, and emit a fragrant, 
spicy aroma. Sepals 5, dry, nearly separate, ovate-lanceolate, acute. Corolla 
monopetalous, salver-form, with 5 ovate, spreading lobes, the tube hairy inside. 
Stamens 10, shorter than the corolla; f/aments hairy at the base; axthers linear, 
opening longitudinally ; fod/en of compound grains as in the preceding, but 
smaller. Ovary globular, depressed, 5-celled, many-seeded ; sty/e slender, form- 
ing a zone about the minutely 5-lobed stigma. Cafszle 5-lobed, 5-celled, 
s-angled, many-seeded, inclosed in the persistent calyx ; P/acente@ large, 2-celled ; 
secds ovate. 
History and Habitat.—Upon rich, damp, mossy banks throughout the central 
part of North America east of the Mississippi, under the shade and protection of 
low pines and hemlocks, in the early sunny days of spring, sometimes even peep- 
ing from under a snow-bank, appear the sweet-scented flowers of this much- 
sought-after little plant; so closely do the prostrate spreading stems cling to and 
mingle with the mosses, to which they in their rusty hairiness bear great simili- 
tude, that one of its common names in some localities is Moss Beauty. Epigzca . 
flowers until May, and ripens its fruit in July. 
It is stated that in lithic acid gravel, and some forms of nephritis, cystitis and | 
vesical catarrh, its use has often been of = benefit than 1 uva-ursi or buchu. 
* _ upon, yi, the earth, os 
