THE WOODLAND ROAD. 77 



leaves are from one to two inches long, smooth, 

 pointed, and sharply toothed. This shrub grows 

 from four to ten feet high, and blooms in May or 

 June, but the scaly bracted flower spikes are formed 

 during the preceding summer. It is certainly 

 deserving of wide cultivation. 



Still another similar shrub which 

 blooms in May, the leather leaf (Cas- 

 sandra calyculata\ formerly con- 

 fused with the species Andromeda, 

 is commonly found beside the road 

 which passes over low, wet grounds 

 near the coast ; it is frequently 

 seen in the pine barrens of New 

 Jersey in company with Leucothce. 

 The tiny, white, urn-shaped flow- 

 ers are evenly distributed over the 

 branchlets, each one growing in the 

 axil of the small leaf. About twenty 

 of these smaller leaves occupy a six- 



p 



inch terminal length of the branch- Leather Leaf, 

 lets, forming with the pretty flowers a 

 one-sided decorative cluster. The leather leaf is well 

 named, for its leaves are thick and leathery, shiny 

 above and rust-colored beneath, about an inch long, 

 tough, nearly if not quite free from teeth, and almost 

 evergreen. It grows from two to three feet high 



