ERICACEAE (HEATH FAMILY) 309 



Much loss is credited to this poisonous little plant when flocks 

 are turned out to pasture in the spring. It does most damage 

 when small, for animals are most likely to eat it when the shoots 

 are young and tender and but a few inches above the ground. 

 Children also have been poisoned by mistaking its first little pinkish 

 leaves for young wintergreens (Gaultheria procumbens}. 



It is a shrub, six inches to nearly three feet tall, slender, with a 

 few nearly erect branches and round, smooth twigs. Leaves ever- 

 green, thick, smooth, entire-edged, pointed at 

 both ends, dark green above, light green below, 

 an inch to two inches long and a quarter-inch 

 to a half -inch wide, with short petioles about 

 a third of an inch ; they grow in opposing pairs 

 or in whorls of three. Flowers beautiful, clus- 

 tered on the sides of the twigs at the base of 

 the season's new growth; they are small, five- 

 lobed, saucer-shaped, bright pink or crimson in 

 color, a little more than a quarter-inch broad, 

 with thread-like pedicels a half-inch to an inch 

 long. Each small saucer has around its sides 

 tiny pockets into which the ten red anthers are 

 tucked, the filaments of the stamens being 

 bent like a spring. When these are touched 

 by the tongues of foraging insects or with a FIG. 215. Nar- 

 needle the anthers are released with a snap, row-leaved Laurel 

 flinging out the pollen. Capsule five-celled, jJ5j)**J **** 

 globose, about an eighth of an inch in diameter, 

 with the thread-like, persistent style thrust out from a deep 

 dimple in its apex. Seeds very small, round, and slightly flattened. 

 (Fig. 215.) 



Means of control 



Grub out or hand-pull the plants in the spring, when the soil is 

 soft. Animals do not often eat the old shrubs, but those are the 

 ones that bloom and fruit and bring on the dangerous young shoots. 

 Cutting the plants causes them to sprout from the roots, unless 

 prevented by the use of a strong herbicide such as caustic soda. 



