White to Green and Brown Flowers 179 



margins, the upper ones forming the bracts of the densely- 

 crowded, compact flower-clusters. 



WOOLLY LABRADOR TEA 



Ledum grcenlandicum. Heath Family 



Stems: erect or ascending, the bractlets rusty-tomentose. Leaves: 

 oblong, obtuse, green and slightly rugose above, densely tomentose 

 beneath, the wool soon ferruginous, and the margins strongly revolute. 

 Flowers: umbellate or corymbose, numerous, terminal; petals five, 

 spreading; pedicels brown-canescent, recurved in fruit. 



This lovely flowering shrub thrives chiefly on low-lying 

 flats and in wet marshy places, where its large terminal clus- 

 ters of snow-white blossoms grow abundantly from sticky 

 scaly buds on the low bushes. The foliage of the Woolly 

 Labrador Tea is strictly characteristic, for the leaves are 

 long-shaped, with revolute margins, green and slightly 

 wrinkled on the top and densely woolly underneath, the wool 

 in the developed foliage being the colour of iron rust. This 

 thick woolly growth is probably designed for the express 

 purpose of protecting the pores of the leaves from becoming 

 clogged by the moist vapours that must necessarily rise 

 round about them, owing to the extremely wet ground in 

 which the shrubs flourish. Plants that grow in very damp 

 localities are specially dependent upon the free perspiration 

 of their leaves to throw off the vast quantities of moisture 

 they absorb through their roots and stems ; consequently 

 such marsh shrubs as the Labrador Teas are forced to adopt 

 a regular system in order to prevent the pores of their leaves 

 from becoming so congested with moisture from outside 

 that they cannot perform their legitimate function of throw- 

 ing off the moisture from within. The small branches are 

 also covered with red, rusty, wool-like hairs. 



