HEATH FAMILY. Ericaceae. 



r . , . A tall shrub, or often a tree, with showy 



Great Laurel P . \ ■> . . f 



Rhododendron clusters of pink-white flowers spotted with 



maximum gold orange, and greenish at the base, the 



Pink spotted five lobes of the corolla, broad, blunt, and 



orange substantially even in shape. The leaves 



June-July . J . * 



shiny dark green, 4-9 inches long, ever- 

 green, leathery, drooping in the winter season, and 

 spreading in summer. They are oblong, toothless, 

 slightly rolled under at the edge, and dark beneath. 

 The flower-stems are sticky-hairy, thus preventing the 

 pilfering of creeping insects ; the flowers are mostly 

 visited by bees, but the honey they produce is said to be 

 poisonous. 5-35 feet high. Damp woods, rare from Me. 

 to Ohio, plentiful from Pa. to Ga. ; abundant through- 

 out the Alleghany region, where, on the mountain sides, 

 it forms impenetrable thickets. 



A species similar in many respects to 

 Rhododendron ,, , . , ,, ., 



Catawbiense the foregoing, but generally not more than 

 Light purple 5 feet high. The leaves are broadly ob- 

 or lilac long or oval, the tips with an abrupt very 



May- June small point, pale green beneath. The 



large flowers are light purple or lilac. This species is 

 hybridized with other less hardy ones, notably the R. 

 arboreum of the Himalayas, and from these proceed 

 most of the Rhododendrons familiar in ornamental 

 grounds. 3-6, or rarely 18 feet high. In the higher 

 Alleghanies from Va. to Ga. 



A dwarf species confined to the summits 

 b '" of high mountains in the north. The olive 



Rhododendron green leaves are small, oval or elliptical, 

 Lapponicum and grouped in clusters on the otherwise 

 Light purple j^^ g^m. They are covered, together 

 u y ~ with the branches, with minute rusty 



scales. The flowers have a five-lobed corolla which is 

 bell-shaped and light purple, dotted. There are 5-10 

 stamens. A prostrate branching plant that hugs the 

 rocky slopes of the mountain. 2-12 inches high. Sum- 

 mits of the White Mountains, N. H., and the Adiron- 

 dacks, N. Y. Found at the head of Tuckerman's Ravine, 

 Mt, Washington, N. H. 



338 



