PINK 



me sudden jubilance of the oven-bird, envelops you and seems the 

 proper accompaniment of such an expedition. You follow, per- 

 haps, a winding path made by the wild animals among the un- 

 derbrush, moving slowly, and you easily overlook the dainty 

 blossom, nestling in some soft, damp nook, and poised lightly 

 on its stem as if ready to flutter away between your covetous 

 fingers. 



PINK AZALEA. WILD HONEYSUCKLE. PINXTER 



FLOWER. SWAMP PINK. 



Rhododendron midiflomin. Heath Family. 



A shrub from two to six feet high. Leaves. — Narrowly oblong ; downy 

 underneath ; usually appearing somewhat later than the flowers. Flowers. — 

 Pink ; clustered. Calyx. — Minute. Corolla. — Funnel-shaped ; with five 

 long recurved lobes. Stainens. — Five or ten ; long, protruding noticeably. 

 Pistil. — One ; long ; protruding. 



Our May swamps and moist woods are made rosy by masses 

 of the pink azalea, which is often known as the wild honeysuckle, 

 although not even a member of the Honeysuckle family. It is 

 in the height of its beauty before the blooming of the laurel, 

 and heralds the still lovelier pageant which is even then in rapid 

 course of preparation. 



In the last century the name of Mayflower was given to the 

 shrub by the Swedes in the neighborhood of Philadelphia. Peter 

 Kalm, the pupil of Linnaeus, after whom our laurel, Kalmia, 

 is named, writes the following description of the shrub in his 

 '' Travels," which were published in English in 1771, and which 

 explains the origin of one of its titles: '* Some of the Swedes 

 and Dutch call them Pinxter-bloom (Whitsunday-flower), as 

 they really are in bloom about Whitsuntide ; and at a distance 

 they have some similarity to the Honeysuckle or ' Lonicera.' 



. . Its flowers were now open and added a new ornament 

 to the woods. . . . They sit in a circle round the stem's 

 extremity and have either a dark red or a lively red color ; but 

 by standing for some time the sun bleaches them, and at last they 



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