The Heaths : the Rhododendron and the Mountain Laurel 



horticultural varieties. Heaths are perennials, usually woody, 

 with a tendency to profuse and showy bloom. The type of the 

 family is the Scotch heather, immortalised in song and story. 

 A very few genera are represented by tree forms. 



In the first quarter of the nineteenth century, when the 

 English first took possession of the Cape of Good Hope, they 

 introduced into England heaths from Australia and South Africa. 

 Their popularity was instant. People went wild over them. 

 They became the dominant feature of the indoor horticulture 

 of the day — the pride of the English gardener. The heydey of 

 these heaths is past. But even now, in London, half a million 

 little potted plants of a single species. Erica hyemalis, are sold 

 each Christmas. An average plant a foot high bears a thousand 

 tiny flowers, rosy and tipped with white. It is good for a month 

 of bloom, and costs from twenty-five to fifty cents. It is the 

 poor man's Christmas flower. The azaleas, which the Belgian 

 gardeners have brought to such perfection and variety, also 

 belong to this family. 



1. Genus RHODODENDRON, Linn. 



Rhododendrons have a hard reputation. Their juice is 

 considered poisonous to man and beast. Honey made from these 

 flowers was believed to have crazed Xenophon's retreating host. 

 Browsing animals were hurt by tasting the leaves and shoots. 

 In his Herbal, Turner wrote of the Italian rhododendron: "I 

 care not if it neuer com into England, seyng it in all poyntes is 

 lyke a Pharesy; that is, beauteus without, and within a rauenus 

 wolf and murderer." 



The American rhododendrons are our most ornamental 

 evergreen shrubs. Only one becomes tree-like in size and habit. 

 It attains its greatest height on the mountain slopes of the Caro- 

 linas and eastern Tennessee. Here it spreads over considerable 

 areas, often forming impenetrable jungles of great beauty, winter 

 and summer. 



Great Rhododendron, Rose "Bay (Rhododendron maximum, 

 Linn.) — Evergreen shrub or small tree, becoming 35 feet high, 

 with dense, broad head of twisted branches. Bark reddish brown, 

 scaly; branches rusty tomentose at first, becoming greyish. 



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