HEATH FAMILY. Ericaceae. 



HEATH FAMILY. Ericacece. 



Mostly shrubs and a few perennial herbs with simple 

 leaves and generally regular, perfect flowers, the corolla 

 of 4-5 lobes or petals, and as many or twice as many 

 stamens. Fruit a capsule or berry. Cross-fertilized by 

 various bees, by the beelike flies, butterflies, and moths. 

 To this family belong the blueberries, huckleberries, 

 and cranberries. 



. • The daintiest member of the Heath 



Snowberry Family, with (often terra-cotta-colored) 



Chiogencs roughish stems creeping closely over rocky 



serpyllifolia and mossy ground. The stiff dark olive 



® evergreen leaves are tiny, broad, ovate 



pointed, and sparsely covered with brown- 

 ish hairs beneath ; the margin of the leaves rolled back- 

 ward. The tiny white flowers are bell-shaped with four 

 rounded lobes. They grow at the angles of the leaves 

 and assume a nodding position. The berry is shining 

 china white, ovate, and about £ inch long. Both leaf 

 and berry possess a wintergreen flavor. Branches 8-11 

 inches long. In cool damp woods and peat bogs, fre- 

 quent on hill-tops, from Me., south to N. Car., and west 

 to Minn. Found in Campton, N. H. The name (Cheek) 

 means ''snow-offspring" ; it is appropriately dainty. 



Also a trailing, hillside plant of a shrubby 



nature, with more or less ruddy, hairy- 

 Uva-ursi rough branches. The toothless leaves are 



White or pink- thick, dark evergreen, round-blunt at the 

 white tip, narrowed at the base, and finely 



ay une veined. The white or rarely pinkish 



white flowers are bell-shaped or vase-shaped, and are 

 borne in terminal clusters. The style extends far be- 

 yond the anthers, and is touched first by the tongue of 

 the visiting insect. The berry is an opaque red ; it is 

 dry and insipid. In dry rocky soil, from Me., south to 

 N. J., west to Minn., S. Dak., and Col. The name is 

 from apHToS, a bear, and 6ra<pv\t}, a berry ; the specific 

 title is mere Latin repetition — Uva, a bunch or cluster of 

 fruit, and Ursus, a bear. 



328 



Bearberry 

 Arctostaphylos 



