HEATH TRIBE 219 



4. Azalea (Azalea). 



Trailing Azalea {A.procmnbens). — Stems woody, prostrate and tangled ; 

 leaves leathery and evergreen, small, smooth, and rigid, with the margins 

 remarkably rolled back ; flowers in short terminal tufts or clusters of 2 or 3 ; 

 perennial. This, which is a plant of dry moory places, has little beauty 

 which can compare with the showy Azaleas of our gardens and greenhouses. 

 Its little clustered flowers, which appear in May and June, have red sepals 

 and pink corollas, and its stiff leaves are dark green. It occurs, so far as 

 these islands are concerned, only in the Highlands from Ben Lomond to 

 Shetland, the altitude of its stations ranging from 1,500 to 3,600 feet. But 

 China is the land in which the Azaleas are to be seen to perfection. 

 Mr. Fortune says : " Most people have seen and admired the beautiful 

 Azaleas which are brought to the Chiswick fetes, and which, as individual 

 specimens, surpass in most instances those which grow and bloom on their 

 native hills ; but few can form any idea of the gorgeous and striking beauty 

 of these Azalea-clad mountains, where, on every side as far as our vision 

 extends, the eye rests on masses of flowers of dazzling brightness and sur- 

 passing beauty. Nor is it the Azalea alone which wins our admiration ; 

 clematis, wild-roses, honeysuckles, the glycine, and a hundred others mingle 

 their flowers with them, and make us confess that China is indeed the 

 ' central flowery land.' " One of the species, A. pdntica, has acquired a great 

 celebrity from having been believed to be the y^golethron of the ancients. 

 The disease which afflicted the army of Xenophon, in the celebrated retreat 

 of the Ten Thousand, was supposed to have been caused by the honey made 

 from the flowers of this plant. They exude a sweet juice, which is said to 

 have intoxicating properties, and the honey gathered on the shores of the 

 Euxine or Black Sea is at the present time believed to be deleterious from 

 the same cause. Desvaux separated this plant from the Azaleas, and of it 

 constituted the monotypic genus Loiseleuria, which is retained by some 

 authorities. 



5. Andromeda (Andrdmeda). 



Marsh Andromeda (A. polifolia). — Stem woody, prostrate below ; 

 leaves leathery, narrow lance-shaped, pointed, their margins rolled, glaucous 

 below ; flowers drooping, in terminal tufts ; perennial. This plant, which 

 grows in peaty bogs in AVales, Somerset, Norfolk, the North of England, 

 and in Scotland, has several local names. It is called Wild Rosemary, Poly- 

 mountain, Moon-wort, and Marsh Holy-rose. Linnaeus, who had a fanciful 

 imagination, gave it its name of Andromeda, because the plants of this 

 genus grow on Alpine bogs and sea-marshes, and being thus, as he deemed, 

 chained to rocks and dreary places, and surrounded by monsters of the deep 

 resembled the fabled Andromeda of ancient poetry. The drooping flowers, 

 which appear from May to September, are pale purplish, and pitcher-shaped. 

 The stamens, which are entirely within the corolla, have bearded filaments, 

 and the anthers are awned. The plant is more frequent in the north of 

 Europe than in these islands, and is common in Sweden, Denmark, Switzer- 

 land, and Germany, as well as on the bogs of North America. A decoction 



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