HEATH FAMILY 



full grown are dull green, smooth above, white-glaucous beneath; 

 midvein very strongly ridged beneath, petioles short. 



Flowers. May, June. Perfect, tiny globes, white or tinged 

 with pink, borne in few-flowered terminal umbels. Bracts small, 

 persistent. Pedicels one-fourth to one-half an inch long. 



Calyx. Deeply five-pointed, persistent; lobes triangular- 

 ovate, acute. Disk ten-lobed. 



Corolla. White, globose, urn-shaped, about one-fourth of an 

 inch in diameter, five-toothed ; teeth recurved. 



Stamens. Ten, included ; filaments bearded ; anthers ovate, 

 obtuse, awned, fixed near the middle; cells opening by a termi- 

 nal pore. 



Fruit. Capsule, globose, five -celled, five-valved, many- 

 seeded. 



This plant is always fixed in some turfy hillock in the midst of swamps, 

 as Andromeda herself was chained to a rock in the sea which bathed her 

 feet as the fresh water does the roots of this plant. 



"Tour of Lapland." LINN/EUS. 



The lonely position of this little shrub in the midst of 

 its native swamps seems to have impressed Linnaeus 

 to a wonderful degree ; and consequently he named it 

 Andromeda the rock-bound maiden. It is a semi- 

 aquatic, subarctic plant, and like so many of its kind 

 knows no distinction between Europe, America or 

 Asia, but is native to all. Although it loves the cold 

 deep swamps that border the limits of eternal snow, 

 nevertheless when transferred to the garden border 

 it will grow and flower as freely as in its native wilds. 



The flowers are clusters of small globes usually 

 white, but sometimes flesh-colored, and sometimes 

 tipped with red ; they retain their beauty for nearly a 

 month. 



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