THE HEATH FAMILY. ERICACEAE 



THE heaths are a family of shrubs. Scattered all over the 

 northern hemisphere, they are widely spread and numerous, 

 but never herbs, and only in a few cases reaching the size of 

 even a small tree. 



They have simple, alternate, leathery and often evergreen 

 leaves. The flowers are clustered in a variety of ways, the 

 stamens always equal to or twice the number of the petals, 

 the carpels united to form a compound ovary with a single 

 style. The fruit may be a berry, a drupe or a hard woody 

 capsule. 



The heaths produce many plants of value in medicine and 

 other ways. The wintergreen flavoring, now prepared from the 

 cherry birch, was originally the product of the aromatic winter- 

 green, a small heath seldom more than six inches high. It 

 is to this family, too, that we owe the fruit of the cranberries 

 and blueberries, and the flowers of the sheep laurels, azaleas 

 and rhododendrons. 



I. THE MADRONAS 

 Genus Arbutus 



So far as North America is concerned no arbutus occurs 

 native on the eastern side of the continent. It is a small genus 

 of ornamental trees or shrubs, mostly confined to the warm or 

 warm temperate parts of the earth. 



Its members have simple, alternate, entire, evergreen leaves, 

 and flowers in raceme-like clusters at the ends of the branches. 

 The calyx is five-parted and persistent, the corolla five-toothed 



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