Andromeda and its Allies 



of these pools this little shrub flourishes and hangs 

 out small clusters of pinkish-white, heath-like bells. 

 Linnaeus often saw it thus in Lapland, and so he gave 

 it for its botanical name the pretty title of Andromeda, 

 in memory of the Greek myth. " This plant is always 

 fixed on some little turfy hillock in the midst of the 

 swamp," he wrote, "just 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." 



It is an attractive little shrub, about two feet, or 

 ven three feet high, with wiry branches, and leaves 

 remarkably like those of the Rosemary, long, very 

 narrow, with smooth dark-green surface and white 

 felted back, over which the margin curls. Hence the 

 plant's name " Wild Rosemary/' though botanically it 

 has no affinity with that fragrant shrub and is, in 

 fact, a member of the Heath family Ericaceae with 

 other members of which it is so often associated in 

 Nature. These leaves are specially designed to mini- 

 mise the giving off of watery vapour by the plant, for, 

 living in a "sour" soil, the roots can absorb little of 

 the abundant water around them. 



The five or six pinkish-white flower bells set in 

 little clusters, recall vividly the close flower clusters of 

 the cross-leaved heath, and their daintiness well ac- 

 counts for another pretty name of the plant, "viz. 



41 Pearlwort." Each hangs on a short, pure white 



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