HEATH FAMILY. Ericaceae. 



Pinxter Flower A m r e leafy shrub with branching 

 or Wild stem, characterized by its extremely golden 



Honeysuckle yellow-green foliage. The ovate leaf 

 Rhododendron ^ and ig pointed at both end the 



nudiflorum 



Pale or deep ed e and surface are very slightly hairy. 

 pink The delicate and beautiful flowers are pale 



April-May or deep crimson-pink with the base of the 

 tube a trifle stronger ; the broader corolla lobes do not 

 curve back conspicuously ; the stamens and pistil, all ex- 

 ceedingly prominent, are light crimson. The flowers 

 are delicately fragrant, grow in small terminal clusters 

 expanding before or with the leaves, and when fading 

 the corollas slide down the pistils, depend from them a 

 while, and finally drop. The most frequent visitors are 

 the honeybees and moths. 2-6 feet high. In swamps or 

 in shady places, from Me., south, and w r est to 111. 



A most beautiful and showy species, 

 Flame Azalea 



Rhododendron entirely southern, but commonly culti- 

 calendulaceum vated. The leaves are hairy and generally 

 Orange=yellow obovate, sometimes with only a few 

 and reddish sca ttered hairs above. The flower, ex- 



panding with or before the leaves, has 

 five broad lobes scarcely if at all backward curved ; it is 

 nearly flame color or orange-yellow more or less suffused 

 with pink, has very little or no fragrance, and the outer 

 surface of the tube is slightly fine-hairy and sticky. The 

 ruddy stamens prominent. 4-12 feet high . In dry wood- 

 lands, southern N. Y. and Pa., in the mountains, to Ga. 

 Rhodora ^ f am ih' ar flower of New England and 



Rhododendron one famous in the verses of the poet 

 .canadense Emerson. The leaves are slightly hairy, 



Light magenta Hg^ green, oval or oblong, and rather 



obtuse ; the color deeper above and paler 

 beneath. The flowers are narrow-lobed, light magenta, 

 and formed somewhat like the honeysuckle, with the up- 

 per lip slightly three-lobed, and the lower in two nearly 

 separate sections ; they grow in thin clusters terminally, 

 and precede the unfolding of the leaves or else expand 

 with them. 1-3 feet high. Wet hillsides and cool bogs. 

 Me., N. Y., N. J., and eastern Pa., in the mountains. 



336 



