Solomon'6 IRivals 113 



splendid laurel in a shrub scarcely a foot high, bear- 

 ing leaves and flowers dwarfed in proportion, the 

 blossoms of the same shape, but less lovely coloring 

 than those of the mountain laurel— the sheep-laurel, 

 supposed to be very poisonous to flocks and herds. 

 When the mountain laurel grows in the partial shade 

 its flowers are of a paler pink than when they receive 

 the full largess of the sun. AYhen a stray bush re- 

 treats fairly into the cool shadows of thick woods, 

 the flowers are fewer, larger, and of a pearly white. 



A near cousin of the laurel is the pink azalea, with 

 large, almost white and richly fragrant flowers. This 

 shrub frequents wet lands, near which grow large 

 trees that yield them shade from too powerful 

 sunshine. The azalea, or wild swamp honeysuckle, 

 blooms earlier than the laurel, and a single bush 

 crowded with bloom will send its fragrance abroad 

 for a mile or more. Tlie peculiarity of this odor is 

 that at a distance, borne on the wind, it is delicious ; 

 near by there is a certain deathly heaviness about it. 

 Emerson finds in a cousin of the azalea and the 

 laurel "a rival of the rose." That rhodora was the 

 famous plant which taught the poet that " beauty is 

 its own excuse for being." 



The elder sister of this beauteous rhodora, the 

 greater rhododendron, is, like the laurel, a mountain 

 lover. The flower stalks of this plant are particu- 

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