THE SOURWOOD OR SORREL-TREE 



ONE who is familiar with the beautiful bell-shaped or urn-shaped flowers of the 

 Cassandra or Andromeda shrubs common in the Northern States will readily 

 recognize in the cluster of flowers pictured on the plate the distinctive character- 

 istics of the Andromeda group of the heath family. These flowers, which appear in June 

 or July against the shining bronze green background of the leaves, render the Sourwood 

 a very attractive tree, and its beauty is almost equally striking when in autumn the leaves 

 take on a vivid scarlet color. These features, together with its hardiness in the North, 

 render it a very desirable tree for ornamental planting : even the fact that it grows slowly 

 may be an advantage to one who wishes to use it in borders among other shrubs. 



As a native tree the Sourwood is said by Sargent to occur on " well-drained, gravelly 

 soil on ridges rising above the banks of streams ; Southeastern Pennsylvania to Southern 

 Indiana and Middle Tennessee, and southward to the coast of Virginia and along the 

 Alleghany Mountains to Western Florida, the shores of Mobile Bay and through the 

 elevated regions of the Gulf states to Western Louisiana ; of its largest size on the slopes 

 of the Big Smoky Mountains, Tennessee." In the latter situation it becomes a tree sixty 

 feet high with a trunk diameter of twenty inches. In trees of good size the bark of the 

 trunk is deeply furrowed. The buds are partially sunken in the bark of the twigs, and there 

 is no terminal bud. The leaves have a distinctly acid taste, to which is due the two com- 

 mon names and the technical genus name Oxydendrum of the species. 



A large proportion of the members of the heath family are shrubs, but there are 

 a few other tree-forms found in North America in addition to the Mountain Laurel, 

 Rhododendron, and Sourwood. These are mostly rare and local species, little known 

 except to the professional botanist. One of these, named Elliottia, in honor of a noted 

 Southern botanist, is found locally in Georgia. Then there are three species of the beautiful 

 Madronas, belonging to the genus Arbutus, which occur in the far Western States, and a 

 single tree-like form, of the Cranberry group the Sparkleberry belonging to the genus 

 V actinium which is rather widely distributed in the Southern States. 



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