ERICACE. SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 137 
KALMIA. 
FLOWERS perfect; calyx 5-lobed, the lobes imbricated in estivation; corolla 
gamopetalous, 10-pouched below the 5-lobed limb, the lobes imbricated in estivation ; 
stamens 10; anthers held before anthesis in the pouches of the corolla; ovary superior, 
5-celled ; ovules numerous. Fruit a septicidal woody capsule. Leaves opposite, alter- 
nate, or 3-verticillate, coriaceous, persistent, destitute of stipules. 
Kalmia, Linneus, Ameen. iii. 13 (1756) ; Gen. ed. 6, 217. — Meisner, Gen. 246. — Bentham & Hooker, Gen. ii. 596. — 
A. L. de Jussieu, Gen. 158. — Endlicher, Gen. 759. — Baillon, Hist. Pl. xi. 172. 
Rhododendros, Adanson, Fam. Pl. ii. 164 (in part) (1763). 
Small trees or shrubs, with scaly bark, terete or two-edged branchlets, minute axillary leaf-buds, 
elongated inflorescence-buds of imbricated scales, and fibrous roots. Leaves opposite, alternate, or 
rarely in whorls of three, ovate-oblong or linear, short-petiolate, entire, coriaceous, persistent. Flowers 
in simple or clustered axillary umbels, fascicles, or corymbs, or rarely axillary, solitary, and scattered. 
Pedicels slender, bibracteolate at the base, produced from the axils of foliaceous coriaceous ovate or 
subulate persistent bracts. Calyx five-parted, the divisions small, or large and foliaceous, persistent 
or deciduous. Corolla rose-colored, purple, or white, crateriform or saucer-shaped, the tube short, with 
ten pouches just below the five-parted limb, the lobes ovate, acute; before anthesis prominently ten- 
ribbed from the pouches to the acute apex of the bud, the salient keels of the ribs running to the points 
of the lobes and to the sinuses. Stamens ten, hypogynous, shorter than the corolla; filaments filiform ; 
anthers oblong, attached on the back, two-celled, each cell opening by a short apical oblong longitudinal 
pore, at first free in the bud, the filaments then erect, later received in the pouches of the corolla and 
afterwards bent back by its enlargement and expansion and straightening elastically and incurving on 
the release of the anthers; pollen grain compound, discharged by the straightening of the filaments.’ 
Disk prominent, ten-lobed. Ovary subglobose, five-celled ; style filiform, exserted, persistent or decidu- 
ous, crowned with a capitate stigma; ovules numerous in each cell, inserted on a two-lipped placenta 
pendulous or porrect from near the top of the thin columella, few-ranked, anatropous; raphe ventral ; 
micropyle superior. Capsules many-seeded, globose, slightly five-lobed, five-celled, tardily septicidally 
five-valved, the valves crustaceous, ultimately opening down the middle by a narrow slit, and separating 
from the persistent placenta-bearing axis. Seed oblong or subglobose; testa crustaceous or membrana- 
ceous; albumen fleshy. Embryo minute, terete, near the hilum; radicle erect, rather shorter than the 
oblong cotyledons. 
Kalmia, of which six species are distinguished,’ is North American and Cuban. One species, 
Kalmia polifolia,’ inhabits bogs from Newfoundland and Hudson’s Bay to the mountains of Pennsyl- 
1 The peculiar structure of the flowers of Kalmia makes their 2 Gray, Syn. Fl. N. Am. ii. 37. 
self-fertilization difficult, as the anthers are not naturally released 8 Wangenheim, Schrift. Gesell. Nat. Fr. Berlin, viii. 130, t. 5 
from the corolla-sacks until the elasticity of the filaments is lost, (1788). 
and evidently provides for their cross-fertilization through the Kalmia glauca, Aiton, Hort. Kew. ii. 64, t. 8 (1789). — Bot. Mag. 
agency of humble-bees, who, in searching in the cup of the flower v. 177.— Nouveau Duhamel, i. 213, t. 45.— Guimpel, Otto & 
for honey, free the anthers, and receiving the pollen on their abdo- Hayne, Abbild. Holz. 165, t. 189.— De Candolle, Prodr. vii. 
mens spread it on the stigma of the next flower which they visit 729. — Hooker, Fl. Bor.-Am. ii. 41. — Gray, J. c. 38. — Watson & 
(Beal, Am. Nat. i. 257.—Gray, How Plants Behave, 33, f. 26-29 ; Coulter, Gray’s Man. ed. 6, 319. 
American A griculturist, xxxv. 262, f. 1-4; Botanical Tezt-Book, ed. 
6, 229, f. 455-458). 
