KALMIA ANGUSTIFOLIA. 

 DWARF LAUREL. 



NATURAL ORDER, ERICACEAE. 



Kalmia ANGUSTIFOLIA, Linnreus. — Stems about two feet high, slender, somewhat branching. 

 Leaves one to two inches long, and about half an inch wide, opposite and ternate, on 

 short petioles, linear-elliptic, paler or slightly russet beneath. Flowers small, bright 

 deep crimson, in lateral corymbs, in the axils of the ternate leaves, and thus appearing 

 verticillate; pedicels filiform, one-third to two-thirds of an inch in length, with two 

 unequal bracts at the base. (Darlington's Flora Cestrica. Seealso Gray's Manual of the 

 Botany of the Northerti United States, Chapman's Flora of the Southern United States, 

 and Wood's Class- Book of Botany.') 



HIS beautiful genus was dedicated to Peter Kalm by Lin- 

 naeus in I 751, as our botanical authorities say. In his 

 Journal, under date of November 20, i 748, Kalm, noting a short 

 trip he made from Philadelphia to the house of Peter Rambo, 

 near Gloucester, New Jersey, and referring to the common 

 Laurel, says : " Dr. Linnaeus, conformable to the peculiar friend- 

 ship and goodness which he has always honored me with, has 

 been pleased to call this tree Kalmia latifoliar In referring to 

 this plant, Dr. Darlington observes : " With great deference to 

 the decision of Linnaeus, this genus of beautiful evergreens is 

 the one which, in my humble opinion, ought to have commem- 

 orated the merits of John Bartram, the botanical patriarch of our 

 country." Linnaeus, however, named no genus in honor of our 

 early naturalist, nor did any one so honor him during his lifetime. 

 After his decease Gaertner, a German botanist, named for him 

 an East Indian plant, allied to the Linden ; but it was found not 

 sufficiendy distinct from a genus already established, and is now 

 known as Triimifelta Bartramia. At the end of the century 



(iSi) 



