Ericaceae. 



285 



Chamaedaphne. Cassandra. 

 (Family Ericaceae). 



Bog shrubs: evergreen. Twigs 

 slender, roundish, at first puberu- 

 lent and scurfy, then with shred- 

 ding gray bark, and finally smooth 

 and deep red-brown: pith small, 

 roundish, continuous. Buds soli- 

 tary, sessile, small, globose and 

 with about 3 exposed scales or be- 

 coming oblong in expansion. Leaf- 

 scars alternate, minute, low, cres- 

 cent-shaped: bundle-trace 1: sti- 

 pule-scars lacking. Leaves simple, 

 entire, scurfy beneath. The small 

 depressed-globose 5-celled cap- 

 sules, with persistent scurfy calyx 

 and 2-bracted at base, are present 

 in winter. 



A peculiar interest attaches to 

 many bog plants in that although 

 they grow with their roots in 

 water they have leaves that are 

 woolly beneath as in Ledum, or of firm structure or scurfy as 

 in Chamaedaphne, or very glaucous beneath as in Vaccinium 

 Oxycoccus, or with their stomata in grooves between the mid- 

 rib and the revolute margin. These are characters usually 

 connected with plants that scarcely obtain enough water; 

 and, in fact, these bog plants really cannot absorb a suffi- 

 ciency of water and so experience the condition of physiologi- 

 cal if not of actual physical drought. 



Leaves relatively broad, fiat. ( Leather leaf) . ( 1 ) . C. calyculata. 

 Leaves narrow, crisped. C. calyculata angustifolia. 



