THE ANDROMEDA. 275 



out an English name. Several species are indigenous in 

 New England, but only two or three of them are com- 

 mon. One of the most beautiful, though extremely rare, is 

 the Water Andromeda, which is found near the edges of 

 ponds. This is the species which suggested to Linnaeus 

 the name given by him to the genus. He describes it 

 in his " Tour of Lapland " as " decorating the marshy 

 grounds in a most agreeable manner. The flowers are 

 quite blood-red before they expand ; but when full-grown 

 the corolla is of a flesh-color. Scarcely any painter's art 

 can so happily imitate the beauty of a fine female com- 

 plexion ; still less could any artificial color upon the face 

 itself bear a comparison with this lovely blossom." He 

 thought of Andromeda as described by the poets, and 

 traced a fancied resemblance between the virgin and the 

 plant, to which it seemed to him her name might be 

 appropriately given. 



One of the most common of our small water shrubs, 

 very homely when viewed from a distance, but neat and 

 elegant under close inspection, is the Dwarf Andromeda. 

 It covers in some parts of the country wide tracts of 

 swampy land, after the manner of the heath, and is not 

 very unlike it in botanical characters, with its slender 

 branches and myrtle-like foliage. It opens its flowers 

 very early in spring, arranged in a long row, like those of 

 the great Solomon's-seal, extending almost from the roots 

 to the extremities of the branches. The flowers all lean 

 one way, each flower proceeding from the axil of a small 

 leaf. Though an evergreen, the verdure of its foliage is so 

 dull and rusty that it is hardly distinguished in the mead- 

 ows which are occupied by it. 



Another remarkable species is the panicled Andromeda, 

 a tall and very common shrub in Eastern Massachusetts, 

 distinguished from the whortleberry by its large com- 

 pound clusters of densely crowded white flowers of a 



