HEATH FAMILY 



garded as a late spring has little effect upon these flow- 

 ers ; the sun is up and so are they ; sometimes they 

 seem fairly to force the season. They are white, 

 urn-shaped, five-angled cups, borne in long, branching 

 racemes. The plant is worth cultivating, however, 

 even if it should never bear a flower; the leaves are so 

 green, clean, bright and glossy. 



Gardeners recommend that the shrub be protected 

 with evergreen boughs to prevent winter burning. 



STAGGER-BUSH 



Pleris mariana. 



Pierts, from Pieria, the town in Thessaly where the Muses 

 congregated ; of no application to this plant. Mariana, 

 because it was first described as a " Maryland shrub." 

 Stagger-bush refers to its reputation for poisoning cattle. 



A low shrub, one to four feet high ; found in low, wet, sandy 

 locations. Ranges from Rhode Island to Florida, mostly near 

 the coast. Hardy throughout the north. 



Leaves. Simple, alternate, tardily deciduous, two to three 

 inches long, oval or oblong, narrowed or rounded at base, mar- 

 gin entire, slightly revolute, acute or obtuse at apex ; when full 

 grown are shining dark green, coriaceous, smooth above, spar- 

 ingly pubescent on the veins and black-dotted beneath. In 

 autumn they turn an intense scarlet, and cling late. 



Flowers. April, May. Perfect, white, bell-shaped, borne in 

 nodding lateral umbels on the many leafless branches of the pre- 

 ceding year, so forming a long compound inflorescence. Pedi- 

 cels bearing one to three bracts. 



Calyx. Deeply five-parted ; lobes lanceolate, acute, valvate 

 in bud, persistent ; disk ten-lobed. 



Corolla. White, or faintly pink, ovoid-cylindric, about half 

 an inch long, five-toothed ; teeth recurved. 



Stamens. Ten ; filaments hairy on the outer side, two- 

 toothed near the apex ; anthers awnless, two-celled ; cells open- 

 ing by a terminal pore. 



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