ERICACEAE. 



271 



LEDUM. Labrador Tea. 

 (Family Ericaceae). 



Bog shrubs: evergreen. Twigs 

 rather slender, rounded: pith 

 small, somewhat 3-sided, spongy, 

 brownish. Buds solitary, sessile, 

 somewhat compressed, small, with 

 about 3 exposed scales; the ter- 

 minal inflorescence buds large, 

 round or ovoid, with some 10 

 broad mucronate glandular-dotted 

 scales. Leaf-scars alternate, most- 

 ly low, half-elliptical or bluntly 

 cordate, the lowest transversely 

 linear: bundle-trace 1: stipule- 

 scars lacking. Leaves simple, en- 

 tire, elliptical to narrowly oblong. 

 The small ovoid or conical-oblong 

 5-celled capsules, dehiscing from 

 the base, may be present in win- 

 ter. 



Winter-character references to 

 Ledum palustre. Bosemann, 35; 



Fant, 51. Unlike most of the Ericaceae, but agreeing with 

 GauHheria, Ledum, possesses a distinctly spongy pith. A sug- 

 gestion of this condition, however, is seen when the twig of 

 some blueberries is split. 



1. Leaves very rusty woolly beneath, revohite. 2. 

 Leaves glabrous, but glandular-dotted beneath. 3. 



2. Leaves broad: capsules oblong. (1). L. groenlandicum. 

 Leaves narrow: capsules ellipsoid, glandular. (2). L. palustre. 



3. Leaves long (4 cm.), much whitened and obscurely gland- 



ular beneath. L. columbianum. 



Leaves small (2 cm.), less whitened but more glandular 



beneath. (3). L. glandulosum. 



