THE EPACSIS FAMILY. 131 



5. Andromeda — {Andromeda polifoUa.) 



In company with th,e heaths, sundews, and cotton-grasses or silver- 

 tassels, upon all the moors and mosses of the district. A white variety 

 has been gathered on Barton Moss. (J. S.) Fl. June — September. 



E. B. X. 713 ; Baxter, v. 361. 



So many delicious flowers and handsome shrubs of this family adorn our 

 gardens, that it is difficult to particularise. They include Ehododendrons of all 

 kinds, Azaleas, the Arbutus or strawbeiTj'-tree (E. B. xxxiv. 2377), Kalmias, 

 Ledums, Menziesias, hardy Ericas, the Gaultheria, the Epigsea, and the elegant 

 Clethras. Most of these are common, and the two first-named universal. The 

 honey of the common yellow Azalea, or A. Pontica, and likewise that of the 

 Kalmias, is reputed poisonous. The latter are known by the exquisite cup-form 

 of their delicate pink or white corollas, in many kinds nearly the size of the bowl 

 of the acorn, with niches for the stamens, in which they lie recurved till the 

 anthers are ready to burst, when they spring up in succession, and spirt their 

 pollen upon the stigma. The Ledums have umbels of white flowers, and the 

 leaves covered upon the underside with brown wool. The hardy Ericas, with 

 their needle-like foliage, and plentiful rosy or white bells, in upright racemes, 

 often with the anthers protruding, are among the earliest harbingers of spring, 

 and reappear with the asters and dahlias of September. The green-house Ericas 

 are perhaps the loveliest plants in cultivation. Every shade of pink, red, crim- 

 son, and green, with the purest pearly white, and occasionally yellow, is met with 

 in their different species ; while in form their corollas exhibit every possible 

 modification of the flask, the tube, and the vase : many are round as an air- 

 bubble. The surface is in some as smooth as the finest poi'celain, in others 

 hairy, silky, or glutinous ; and the foliage in every instance needle like, plentiful, 

 and evergreen. 



XX.— THE EPACRIS FAMILY. Epacridea>. 



Evergreen shrubs, similar externally to the true heaths of the Heath 

 Family, but diflfering from them in having only one cell to the anthers, 

 which opens longitudinally ; whereas in the Heath Family there are 

 two cells, which open by terminal pores. The stamens, moreover, 

 very commonly adhere to the sides of the corolla, while in the Heath 

 Family they are almost without exception on the receptacle. The 

 conspicuous distinction from the time heaths lies in the pentamerous 

 flower, that of the former being tetramerous. The Epacridece are also 



11 A 



