ANDROMKDA MARIANA. STAGOKR-HISII. iS; 



only retained as a section of the genus .Uidronnda, and does 

 not even comprise our species. 



The Andromeda Mariana was well known to our tarliLT 

 botanists. Plukenet refers to it as a " Maryland shrub, with 

 the leaves of a Euonymus and the flowers of an .Arbutus," not 

 an unapt description. It was also among the plants sent by 

 Clayton to Gronovius, and according to .Aiton it was hrst 

 introduced into England, in a living state, in 1736, by Peter 

 Collinson, in whose garden it was cultivated. 



Although so beautiful as a flower, our species has rather an 

 uncertain reputation. Dr. Darlington says, in his " I^'lora 

 Cestrica " : "This shrub is very common in New Jcrsev, where 

 the farmers think it is injurious to sheep, when eaten by them, 

 producing a disease called the staggers^ This popular belief 

 has driven to the Andromeda jl/ariana its common name, which 



o 



is Stagger-Bush, a fact for which we are rather sorry, as it is 

 probable that the plant is not so injurious as it has been sup- 

 posed to be. Careful investigator that he was, Dr. Darlington 

 himself expressed some doubts as to its noxiousness, in h.is 

 " Agricultural Botany." Dr. Peyre Porcher, however, is also 

 suspicious of the species. He says that " the honey which tlie 

 bees extract from these flowers is slightly poisonous," and refiTG 

 to *' Nicholson's Journal " as his authority. Similar charges 

 have been made against the Azaka^ Rhododendron^ and Kalmui, 

 all of them ericaceous plants, and it is barely possil^le that the 

 suspicion has been transferred from one of these plants to 

 the other, without any very special foundation. Dr. Gray, in 

 his recently published "Synoptical Flora," as v.ell as in his 

 ''Manual," remarks that it is said to be poisonous to "lambs 

 and calves," but he does not include "sheep," to which, accord- 

 ing to popular belief, as we have seen, it is said to be sj)ecially 

 injurious. 



In regard to its medicinal cjualities, we are informed by Dr. 

 Titford, in his " Mortus Botanicus Americaiuis," that the .Indn^ 

 meda Mariana "is a cure for the ground or toe-itch." Dr. 



