The Heaths : the Rhododendron and the Mountain Laurel 



and well worth looking into. There is a bee lighting on the border, 

 and probing the tube of the corolla for honey. Her clumsiness 

 makes her Nature's agent for the fertilising of these flowers. 

 As she steps on a bent filament, it straightens itself with a spring, 

 the hidden anther is drawn forth and bangs against her furry 

 body, dusting her well with the pollen, which comes in a 

 jet out of a small pore at the top of the anther. The 

 mountain laurel is not self-fertile. Only insects, gathering 

 nectar by the hour, fertilise these flowers. They brush 

 their pollen-laden bodies against the erect pistils, thus 

 bringing about cross-fertilisation wherever they go. A net 

 tied over a mass of blossoms, excluding the bees, will defeat 

 Nature, for the stamens are never released, though the pollen 

 cells are ripe and waiting, as is the sticky stigma in their 

 midst. No seed will be set, though all about, on branches 

 not covered, little flattened green capsules, each waving a 

 curved green wand aloft, ripen their seeds and cast them in 

 the fall. 



The mountain laurel is being stripped from its native hills in 

 wholesale quantities: first, by the nurserymen, for the decorative 

 planting of private estates; second, by collectors of Christmas 

 greens. In the blossoming season the bushes are mutilated by 

 thoughtless persons collectors who will sell the flowers, and 

 thoughtless, greedy persons who "can't stop picking because they 

 are so beautiful." The present moment is the only portion of 

 time these people consider. 



The makers of wooden spoons, ladles, rustic furniture and 

 pipes are despoiling the Southern woods of rhododendron and 

 laurel. The end of these beautiful heaths is not so far off, unless 

 the ruthless destruction of them in the wild woods can be checked. 

 There is no more beautiful garden shrub than Kalmia. 

 It is easily propagated from seed in nurseries, and should be 

 obtained from these sources. It is hardy and thrifty farther 

 north than rhododendron. Transplanting from the wild is pre- 

 carious business with heaths, and the average person fails 

 utterly. 



In the name of this genus, Linnaeus commemorates the 

 devoted labours of Peter Kalm, the Swedish traveller and botanist, 

 through whose eyes "the father of botany" saw the wonderfully 

 rich and varied flora of the New World. 



421 



