32 ENGLISH BOTANY. 



opening scpticidally, with 2 or 3 valves separating at the apex at 

 the partitions. Seeds numerous. 



A small prostrate difFusely-branched shrub, with opposite ever- 

 green coreaceous leaves and small pink flowers with red calyces. 



This genus is named after the celebrated French botanist Loiseleur-Deslongchamps, 

 who published a Flora of France in 1810. 



SPECIES I.— LOISELEURIA PROCUMBENS. Desv. 



Plate DCCCLXXXIV. 



Rekh. Tc. Fl. Germ, et Helv. Vol. XVII. Tab. MCLIX 



BiUot, Fl. Gall, et Germ. Exsicc. No. 2710. 



Azalea procumbens, Linn. Sm. Eng. Bot. No. 865. Bab. Man. Brit. Bot. ed. v. 



p. 217. Hook. & Am. Brit. Fl. ed. viii. p. 273. Fries, Sum. Veg. Scand. p. 49. 



Koch, Syu. Fl. Germ, et Helv. ed. ii. p. 548. Reich, fil. 1. c. 



The only species. 



In barren rocky places on mountains in the Scotch Highlands ; 

 from Stirling and Perthshire northwards, extending to Sutherland, 

 Orkney, and Shetland. 



Scotland. Shrub. Late Summer. 



A small much-branched prostrate shrub, growing in dense mats. 

 Stems woody, rooting, tortuous, diffusely branched, with dull-brown 

 bark splitting off in scales. Shoots of the year glabrous. Leaves 

 opposite, crowded, ^ to J inch long, coriaceous, evergreen, oblong- 

 oval, attenuated into short indistinct petioles, with the margins 

 very broadly revolute, dark-green, shining, glabrous, and with 

 the midrib impressed above, densely felted with short white wool 

 beneath, with the midrib very thick, prominent, glabrous, leaving 

 only a slender strip of the felted portion visible between it and the 

 reflected part of the margin. Plowers erect, 2 to 5, in an umbellate 

 raceme. Pedicels red, ^ to J inch long, with sub-herbaceous ovate 

 bracts (which are woolly within) at the base, destitute of bracteoles. 

 Calyx red, 4-partite. Segments oblong-lanceolate, blunt. Corolla 

 pink, regular, widely funnel-shaped, J inch across, 5-cleft, with the 

 lobes oblong, obtuse. Stamens 5, included, without appendages ; 

 anthers opening by clefts instead of merely pores, as is usually the 

 case in the Ericacea3. Capsule sub-globular, acuminated, crimson, 

 about the size of a hemp-seed, splitting at the apex into 2 or 3 

 valves, each of which is again split at the apex. 



Trailing Azalea. 



French, Azalee CtMcltee. 



This plant is abundant in the North, on most of the Scottish Highland moun- 

 tains, among grass and moss, and nowhere more plentiful than on the Cairn-gourm 

 range, where it forms large dark-green patches. 



