HARPER'S GUIDE TO WILD FLOWERS 



A low shrub, not more than 3 feet high, found in swamps 

 and on damp hillsides from Pennsylvania and New Jersey- 

 northward. 



Sheep Laurel. Lambkill. Wicky 



Kalmia angustifblia. — Family, Heath. This is a low shrub, 1 

 foot or more high, with narrow, evergreen leaves in whorls of 

 threes. Flowers, from the axils, in corymbs of a deep crimson 

 color, the dark anthers which nestle in their pockets having the 

 effect of spots. 



Thoreau always speaks of it as "lambkill." He says 

 (June 13th): "The lambkill is out. I remember with what 

 delight I used to discover this flower in dewy mornings. 

 All things in the world must be seen with the morning dew 

 upon them, must be seen with youthful, early opened, hope- 

 ful eyes." 



And this is how he writes of the flower at evening: " How 

 beautiful the solid cylinders of the lambkill now, just before 

 sunset — small, 10-sided, rosy-crimson basins about 2 inches 

 above the recurved, drooping, dry capsules of last year!" 

 Most people would not agree with him that it is " handsomer 

 than the mountain laurel." 



Supposed to be poisonous to young animals and hurtful to 

 cattle and horses. Stags eat the leaves, digging them from 

 under the snow. The Indians make a decoction of kalmia 

 leaves (says Dr. Barton) with which to commit suicide. 



Atlantic States to Georgia. 



Pale Laurel 



K. poUfolia, with its mostly opposite, narrow, long leaves, whit- 

 ish underneath and turned back on the margins, and its few ter- 

 minal rosy flowers on long, red stalks, is to my mind prettier than 

 Thoreau's lambkill. 



A straggling bush, 1 foot high, growing in swamps, almost 

 in water, with the cotton grass and andromeda. Newfound- 

 land, southward to Pennsylvania and westward. (See illus- 

 tration, p. 443.) 



Black Whortleberry or Huckleberry. High Bush 

 Huckleberry 



Ga.ylussa.cia. baccata. — Family, Heath. Color, pink or red. 

 Leaves, entire, alternate, ovate, with short petioles or none, pro- 

 fusely dotted underneath with resinous, yellow spots, 1 to 2 

 inches long. Calyx, resinous-dotted, 5-pointed, the points re- 



442 



