HEATH FAMILY 



animals. Older cattle know enough to let them alone, 

 but in early spring when the tender leaves are appear- 

 ing, calves and young cattle, eager for green things, 

 eat, and unless promptly treated, die. 



The plants are a constant menace to the farmers on 

 the mountains of Virginia, and the common names 

 Lambkill, Calf Kill, Sheep Poison, clearly voice the 

 "deep damnation " of rural opinion concerning them. 



SWAMP LAUREL. PALE LAUREL 



Kdlmia glaiica. 



Low, slender-stemmed, evergreen, six to eighteen inches high; 

 native of bogs and swamps. Ranges from Newfoundland to 

 Alaska, southward to New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Michigan. 



Stems. Smooth, yellow brown; branchlets two-ridged: 

 ridges change position at each node. 



Leaves. Evergreen; opposite or sometimes in threes, an inch 

 and a quarter to two inches long, a quarter of an inch wide, 

 nearly sessile, oblong or linear-oblong, margin entire and revo- 

 lute, apex acute, bright shining green above, glaucous or whitish 

 beneath; midvein depressed, whitish above, prominent beneath. 



Flowers. April, May. Of kalmia type, bluish pink, borne 

 in simple terminal umbels of one to thirteen flowers. Pedicel an 

 inch long, slender, madder red ; each subtended by a bract. 



Calyx. Five -parted; segments scarious margined, pink-- 

 tipped, imbricate in bud, persistent. 



Corolla. Saucer-shaped, about half an inch across, five-lobed, 

 ten-keeled in bud, with ten tiny sacs in the saucer, into which 

 the stamens are thrust. 



Stamens. Ten, shorter than corolla, filaments pink, stamens 

 dark reddish brown, pocketed in the corolla sacs, springing forth 

 by means of pressure and delivering pollen from terminal pores. 



Pistil. Ovary five-celled, ovules numerous ; style slender, ex- 

 serted ; stigma depressed-capitate. 



Fruit. Depressed-globose capsule, glabrous about an eighth 

 of an inch across. 



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