Magenta to Pink 



Dr. Barton the Indians drink a decoction of kalmia leaves when 

 they wish to commit suicide. 



As laurel wood is very hard and solid, weighing forty-four 

 pounds to the cubic foot, it is in great demand for various pur- 

 poses, one of them indicated in the plant's popular name of Spoon- 

 wood. 



Sheep-laurel, Lamb-kill, Wicky, Calf-kill, Sheep-poison, Nar- 

 row-leaved Laurel (K. angustifohd) , and so on through a list of 

 folk names testifying chiefly to the plant's wickedness in the 

 pasture, may be especially deadly food for cattle, but it certainly 

 is a feast to the eyes. However much we may admire the small, 

 deep crimson-pink flowers that we find in June and July in moist 

 fields or swampy ground or on the hillsides, few of us will agree 

 with Thoreau, who claimed that it is "handsomer than the 

 mountain laurel." The low shrub may be only six inches high, 

 or it may attain three feet. The narrow evergreen leaves, pale on 

 the under side, have a tendency to form groups of threes, stand- 

 ing upright when newly put forth, but bent downward with the 

 weight of age. A peculiarity of the plant is that clusters of leaves 

 usually terminate the woody stem, for the flowers grow in whorls 

 or in clusters at the side of it below. 



The Pale or Swamp Laurel (K. glauca), found in cool bogs 

 from Newfoundland to New Jersey and Michigan, and west- 

 ward to the Pacific Coast, coats the under side of its mostly up- 

 right leaves with a smooth whitish bloom like the cabbage's. It 

 is a straggling little bush, even lower than the lamb-kill, and an 

 earlier bloomer, putting forth its loose, niggardly clusters of deep 

 rose or lilac-colored flowers in June. 



Trailing Arbutus; Mayflower; Ground Laurel 



(Epigaea repens) Heath family 



Flowers Pink, fading to nearly white, very fragrant, about Y* in. 

 across when expanded, few or many in clusters at ends of 

 branches. Calyx of 5 dry overlapping sepals ; corolla salver- 

 shaped, the slender, hairy tube spreading into 5 equal lobes ; 

 10 stamens ; i pistil with a column-like style and a 5-lobed 

 stigma. Stem: Spreading over the ground (Epigaea = on 

 the earth) ; woody, the leafy twigs covered with rusty hairs. 

 Leaves : Alternate, oval, rounded at the base, smooth above, 

 more or less hairy below, evergreen, weather-worn, on short, 

 rusty, hairy petioles. (Illustration facing p. 128.) 



Preferred Habitat- Light sandy loam in woods, especially under 

 evergreen trees, or in mossy, rocky places. 



127 



