White and Greenish 



knows the tealike fragrance given forth by the leaves of this com- 

 mon shrub when crushed in a warm hand. But because the 

 homceopathists claim that like is cured by like, are we to assume 

 that these little bushes, both of which afford a soothing lotion, 

 also irritate and poison ? It may be ; for they are next of kin 

 to the azaleas, laurels, and rhododendrons, known to be injuri- 

 ous since Xenophon's day (p. 126). At the end of May, when 

 the Labrador tea is white with abundant flower-clusters, one 

 cannot but wonder why so desirable an acquisition is never seen 

 in men's gardens here among its relatives. Over a hundred years 

 ago the dense, compact little shrub was taken to England to adorn 

 sunny bog-gardens on fine estates. Doubtless the leaves have 

 woolly mats underneath for the reason given in reference to the 

 Steeple-bush on page 96. 



Wild Rosemary; March Holy Rose; Water 

 Andromeda; Moorwort 



(Andromeda Polifolia) Heath family 



Flowers White or pink-tinted, small, round, tubular, 5-toothedat 

 the tip ; drooping from curved footstalks in few-flowered ter- 

 minal umbels. Calyx deeply 5-parted; 10 bearded stamens; 

 style like a column. Stem : A sparingly branched, dwarf 

 shrub, 6 in. to j ft. tall. Leaves : Linear to lance-shape, ever- 

 green, dark and glossy above, with a prominent white bloom 

 underneath, the margins curled. 



Preferred Habitat Cool bogs, wet places. 



Flowering Season May June. 



Distribution Pennsylvania and Michigan, far northward. 



Only a delightfully imaginative optimist like Linnaeus could feel 

 the enthusiasm he expended on this dwarf shrub, with its little, 

 white, heathlike flowers, which most of us consider rather insig- 

 nificant, if the truth be told. But then the blossoms he found in 

 Lapland must have been much pinker than any seen in American 

 swamps, since they reminded him of " a fine female complexion." 



" This plant is always fixed on some little turfy hillock in the 

 midst of the swamps," he wrote, "just as Andromeda herself 

 was chained to a rock in the sea, which bathed her feet as the fresh 

 water does the roots of this plant. ... As the distressed 

 virgin cast down her blushing face through excessive affliction, so 

 does this rosy-colored flower hang its head, growing paler and 

 paler till it withers away." Under the old go-as-you-please method 

 of applying scientific names, most of this shrub's relatives shared 

 with it the name of the fair maid whom Perseus rescued from the 

 dragons. 



235 



