382 THE HEATH FAMILY. 



FALSE HEATHER. ALLEGHANY flANZIESIA. 



Menzihia pildsa. 



FAMILY COLOUR ODOUR RANGE TIME OF BLOOM 



Heath. Reddish purple Scentless. Georgia to Pennsylvania. May ^ June, 



or greenish. 



Floxvers : small ; drooping ; growing in umbels with long, hairy pedicels at the 

 ends of the branchlets and appearing with the leaves. Ca/j/x :' persistent ; with 

 four blunt teeth; ciliate. Corolla: urn-shaped, the four teeth rounded at the sum- 

 mit. Stamens : eight ; included. Pistil : one ; included. Capsule : woody ; ovoid ; 

 covered with fine glandular hairs. Seeds: numerous; pointed. Lea'oes : with 

 short petioles ; oblong to obovate, bluntly pointed at the apex and narrowed at the 

 base ; entire ; thin ; hairy on the upper surface, pale and glaucous underneath 

 with a white fuzz on the ribs. A shrub two to six feet high with greyish brown 

 peeling'bark, black dotted. 



Through the mountainous woods of its range where there is so happy a 

 blending of much northern and southern flora, and a strength of growth al- 

 most unrivalled prevails, the false heather climbs sometimes to the tops of 

 such high peaks as Mount Mitchell and there unfolds its delicately formed 

 bells of bloom. In colour they are rather indefinite. 



SAND MYRTLE. MOUNTAIN HEATHER. i^Plate CXXII,) 

 Dendrium bnxifblium prosirditim, 



FAMILY COLOUR ODOUR RANGE TIME OF BLOOM 



Neath. Pinkish white. Scentless. Mountains 0/ North Carolina. May-October. 



Flowers: tiny; one or several growing in terminal corymbs. Calyx: five- 

 parted, persistent. Corolla : with five delicate, spreading petals. Stamens : ten ; 

 exserted. Pistil : one. Capsule : ovo\d and projecting a remnant of the slender 

 style, three to five-valved. Zmz'^j- ; very small, with short petioles and growing 

 thickly along the branchlets ; oval or oblong ; obtuse ; thick ; dark green and 

 shiny above, lighter below; glabrous; evergreen. A low, much branched shrub 

 with rough and broken bark. 



A prettier, more thrifty form of growth can hardly be imagined than is 

 displayed by this bewitching little shrub as it is seen on the tip top of Roan 

 Mountain hugging about and closing in the thick rounded clumps of rhodo- 

 dendrons. It thus daintily fills in the space between where their branches 

 stop and the ground. Late in September after its prolific blooming was 

 over we saw the little thing still lit here and there with its exquisite, tiny 

 white flowers. Often their petals were tipped with deep pink, or red, and 

 the buds especially were of this bright colour. The scientific name of the 

 plant when repeated to a mountaineer who said he'd " heard it called sum- 

 thin' in books," so startled his childish mind that with a swift contemptuous 

 glance he turned and fled like a deer. 



