122 



is eagerly sought for rustic furniture, for tools and as a substitute 

 for making brier-wood pipes. It once grew abundantly on the 

 banks of the Harlem River at High Bridge and Inwood; there is 

 still a little of it left in Bronx Park, but it seldom blooms, which 

 probably accounts for there being any of it still indigenous. 

 The flowers grow in clusters at the ends of last year's branches, 

 forming large cymes of white and pale pink. Each flower is a 

 study in itself and most difficult to draw or paint, on account of 

 the numerous ridges and projections on the outside of the buds 

 and the delicate curves and depressions of the open flower. 



The pedicels are about one inch long, and glandular hairy; the 

 calyx is also glandular and small, with five narrow sepals; the 

 corolla has a short basal tube and ten prominent dorsal ridges, 

 five of which are longer and also glandular, the limb is five-lobed 

 with shallow notches between the lobes and ten dark red blotches, 

 marking the indentations in which the anthers are held; the 

 filaments are white and curved. They spring upward around 

 the pistil, if suddenly released by the visit of a bumble-bee, or 

 other large insect, dusting his back with a white pollen which 

 escapes from the anthers, through two apical pores. The 

 pistil is at first curved, later becoming erect, with five greenish- 

 yellow stigmatic surfaces and a superior glandular ovary, which 

 develops into a five-lobed capsule. An unusual form of the 

 laurel has been found near Deerfield, Massachusetts, with the 

 corolla divided to the base into five long narrow petals. This 

 freak has been cultivated, though not nearly as beautiful, and 

 produces seed. 



The leaves are thick and glossy and keep their dark green color 

 and brilliancy throughout the winter. They are from two to 

 five inches long and sometimes nearly two inches wide and when 

 young have minute black glandular hairs on the upper surface; 

 the petioles are short and thick, opposite or alternate and clus- 

 tered at the ends of the branches, which are stout and woody, 

 often spreading and usually making a small dense shrub about 

 two to six feet high. Rarely, in sheltered inaccessible valleys of 

 the southern Alleghanies, it is said to become a tree having a 

 trunk thirty to forty feet high with a diameter of i8 inches; but 

 this is probably a thing of the past. 



