SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. ERICACEZ. 
140 
in the axils of the upper leaves in the form of slender acuminate cones of acute pubescent scales ; 
they begin to lengthen with the first warm days of spring, and usually develop two or several lateral 
branches, the whole forming a compound many-flowered corymb of numerous crowded fascicles, 
more or less covered with dark scurfy scales, four or five inches in diameter, and overtopped at the 
flowering time by the leafy branches of the year. The branches of the fascicles, and the long slender 
pedicels, which are red or green, covered with glandular hairs, and furnished at the base with two minute 
acute bractlets, are developed from the axils of acute persistent bracts sometimes a third of an inch long. 
The flowers open in May or June, and when fully expanded are nearly an inch in diameter. The 
calyx is divided nearly to the base into narrow acute thin green lobes. The corolla is white, rose- 
colored, or pink, viscid-pubescent, and marked on the inner surface with a waving dark rose-colored line 
and with delicate purple penciling above the sacs. The fruit, which ripens in September, is depressed, 
crowned with the persistent style, surrounded at the base by the persistent calyx, three sixteenths of 
an inch in diameter, and covered with viscid hairs. The seeds, which are oblong, are scattered by the 
opening of the valves of the capsules, which remain on the branches until the following year, the valves 
splitting through the middle and generally carrying the placentas with them. 
Aalmia latifolia is distributed from New Brunswick to the northern shores of Lake Erie,’ and 
southward, generally in the neighborhood of the Appalachian Mountains, to western Florida, and 
through the Gulf states to western Louisiana and the valley of the Red River in Arkansas. At the 
north it often grows in low moist ground near the margins of swamps, or on dry slopes under the shade 
of the deciduous-leaved forest ; on the southern mountains, where it is most abundant and often forms 
great dense impenetrable thickets, and where it ascends to elevations of three to four thousand feet 
above the level of the sea, it selects as its home rich rocky hillsides. It is usually a shrub, and 
assumes the habit and attains the size of a tree only in a few secluded fertile valleys between the Blue 
Ridge and the Alleghany Mountains in North and South Carolina. 
The wood of Aalmia latifolia is heavy, hard, strong although rather brittle, and close-grained ; 
it contains remote broad dark brown conspicuous medullary rays, and between these, numerous thin 
inconspicuous rays. It is brown tinged with red, with slightly lighter colored thick sapwood. The 
specific gravity of the absolutely dry wood is 0.7160, a cubic foot weighing 44.62 pounds. It is used 
for the handles of tools, in turnery, and for fuel. 
The earliest account of Kalmia latifolia appeared in 1700 in the Almagesti Botanici Mantissa 
of Plukenet.* According to Aiton,’ it was introduced into English gardens in 1734 by Peter Collinson.‘ 
When it is covered with its clusters of delicately marked white or pink flowers, the Mountain 
Laurel ® is one of the most beautiful plants of the North American flora. Few shrubs are more desirable 
or satisfactory inhabitants of the garden, which it ornaments at all seasons of the year. It is easily 
raised from seed; the fine matted roots, which form a compact solid ball, make the operation of moving 
the young plants easy and safe; it flowers profusely when only a few inches in height; it is perfectly 
hardy except in countries of the most extreme winter cold or of tropical heat, and it is not particular 
about soil or exposure, although, like other plants of its family, it does not flourish in soil strongly 
impregnated with lime.® 
1 Brunet, Cat. Vég. Lig. Can. 39. — Macoun, Cat. Can. Pl. i. 300. 
? Cistus Chamerhododendros Mariana, Laurifolia, floribus expan- 
sis, summo ramulo in umbellam plurimis, 49 ; Amalth. Bot. t.379, £. 6. 
Chamedaphne foliis Tint, floribus bullatis umbellatis, Catesby, Nat. 
Hist. Car. ii. 98, t. 98. 
Andromeda foliis ovatis obtusis, corollis corymbosis infundibuliformi- 
bus, genitalibus declinatis, Clayton, Fl. Virgin. 160. 
Ledum floribus bullatis confertim in summis caulibus nascentibus, 
foliis ex oblongo lanceolatis integerrimis glabris, Trew, Pl. Ehret, t. 38, 
f. 1. 
8 Hort. Kew. ii. 64.— Loudon, Arb. Brit. ii. 1151, f. 959. 
4 See i. 8. 
5 Kalmia latifolia is also sometimes called Calico Bush, Spoon 
Wood, and universally by the inhabitants of the southern Alleghany 
Mountains, Ivy. 
® A curious monstrous form of Kalmia latifolia, in which the 
corollas are all deeply divided into five narrowly linear or some- 
times nearly thread-shaped petals, the pouches being rudimentary 
and represented by slight depressions on the inner surface of the 
divisions of the corolla, was discovered several years ago by Miss 
M. Bryant near Deerfield, Massachusetts (Gray, Am. Nat. iv. 
373. — Sargent, Garden and Forest, iii. 452, f. 56). 
