ANDROMEDA. 591 



GENUS III. ANDRO'MEDA LINN. Andromeda. 



Nat. Ord. ERI'CE.E. Juss. 



GEN. CHAR. Calyx fire-cleft Corolla ovate or campanulate, with a 

 five-cleft reflexed limb. Stamens erect, anthers awncd. Capsule 

 four or five celled, four or five valved, the disseppiments from the 

 middle of the valve. Named in allusion to the fable of the virgiu 

 Andromeda, the daughter of Cepheus and Cassiope, King and 

 Queen of (Ethiopia, who was chained to a rock, and exposed to 

 the attack of a sea monster ; and in like manner Linnaeus, in- 

 dulging in his fanciful imagination, draws the comparison of the 

 elegant and beautiful plants of this genus to the virgin, and 

 growing as though chained to rocks, and in dreary wastes, 

 swamps, and marshes, where preternatural beings are feigned to 

 dwell, and exposed to these tormentors. 



1. A. polifo'lia, Linn. (Fig. 671.) Marsh Andromeda. Leaves 

 alternate, lanceolate, the margins revolute, green and shining above, 

 pale and glaucous beneath ; flowers terminal, sub-umbellate. 



English Botany, t. 713. English Flora, vol. ii. p. 250. Hooker, 

 British Flora, vol. i. p. 193. Lindley, Synopsis, .p. 173. 



J3. costce flora, Tempi. Leaves inversely, ovate lanceolate ; flowers 

 in umbels, five sided. 



Mr. Templeton. Flora Hibernica, p. 179. 



A small evergreen shrub, from twelve to eighteen inches high, much 

 branched and spreading, the branches round, smooth, rigid, leafy, dark 

 brown. Leaves alternate, on short footstalks, lanceolate, frequently 

 almost linear, from the margins being greatly rolled back, a smooth 

 dark shining green above, and channeled, a pale glaucous beneath, with 

 a stout mid-rib and numerous branched veins. Inflorescence a ter- 

 minal umbellate raceme, of a few white or pink flowers, each elevated 

 on a slender peduncle, about an inch long, from the base of an ovate 

 bractea, drooping when in flower, erect in fruit, and mostly glaucous. 

 Calyx in five ovate lanceolate segments, spreading. Corolla ovate, 

 contracted at the mouth with a short five-cleft limb. Stamens with 

 awl-shaped filaments, smooth or hairy, and ovate two-celled anthers, 

 opening with terminal pores, and surmounted with two awl-shaped 

 awns. Style nearly as long as the corolla, with an obtuse stigma. 

 Capsule roundish, oblong, depressed at the top around the persistent 

 base of the style, somewhat five angled, five celled, and five valved, 

 with a central receptacle. Seeds numerous, small, roundish, com- 

 pressed, smooth, shining, pale brown. 



Habitat. Peat and boggy situations in the mountainous districts, 

 chiefly the North of England, and the Lowlands of Scotland, and not 

 unfrequent in Ireland ; the variety |3. on a dry bog belween Newport 

 and Castleconnel. 



Shrub; flowering in June. 



