Wild Flowers East of the Rockies 237 



SWAMP HONEYSUCKLE; WHITE AZALEA 



(Rhododendron viscosum) is a most beautiful swamp 

 shrub with handsome, fragrant, white flowers. In 

 low, wet swamps it is very common and blooms very 

 profusely during June and July. The bush is from 3 

 to 8 feet in height and very branchy. The leaves are 

 long-oval, broadest towards the blunt-pointed tip and 

 narrowing to short stems. 



The beautiful flowers are pure white, or rarely 

 tinged with pink; the tube of the long corolla is cov- 

 ered with very sticky, brownish hairs, and termin- 

 ates in five, large, pointed, spreading lobes. The 

 stamens are very long, slender and white, and tipped 

 with yellow anthers. The five-pointed calyx is very 

 small and inconspicuous. 



Besides being quite fragrant, the flowers secrete 

 considerable nectar in the base of the tube, and are, 

 consequently, favorites with many species of but- 

 terflies, moths and bees. Pilfering insects, like ants, 

 are unable to reach the nectar tube, because of the 

 very sticky exterior of the corolla. This species has 

 the branchlets, and the margins and midribs of the 

 leaves, bristly, this distinguishing it from the very 

 similar Smooth Azalea (R. arborescens). The corolla 

 tubes of both these species are much longer than 

 the spreading lobes, this readily distinguishing them 

 readily from the Pink Azalea in which the tube is 

 about the same length as the lobes. 



During the early time of their bloom, all the Aza- 

 leas bear, hanging among the fragrant flowers, pe- 

 culiar, juicy, pulpy growths that are edible, as any 

 well bred farmer's boy knows; he calls them May or 

 Swamp Apples, but they are really modified buds and 

 not fungus growths or caused by insects, as was for- 

 merly believed. These beautiful Azaleas are found 

 from Me. to Ohio and southwards. 



