HEATH FAMILY 



serrulate; pedicels glandular; flowers rose-color to 

 white, very fragrant, expanding with or before the 

 leaves ; corolla border of two inches across ; the tube 

 rather stout, densely glandular but scarcely viscid ; 

 stamens exserted ; capsule linear-oblong, narrowed 

 above, glandular, one-quarter to one-third of an inch 

 long. 



FLAMING AZALEA 

 Azalea Ihtea. Azalea ealendulacea. 



Four to fifteen feet high ; erect, branches and twigs mostly 

 smooth ; in dry woods. Ranges from soutliern New York to 

 Georgia on the slopes of the Appalachian mountains. Attrac- 

 tive in cultivation. 



Leaves. — Alternate, simple, oblong, oval or obovate, wedge- 

 shaped at base, margins serrulate and ciliolate-serrulate, some- 

 what revolute, acute at apex ; when full grown bright green, 

 glabrous or slightly hairy above; more or less downy or tomen- 

 tose beneath. Petioles short. 



Floivers. — May, June, with the leaves. Perfect, orange, yel- 

 low or red, very showy, slightly fragrant, borne in terminal um- 

 bels developed from cone-like scaly buds, which were formed 

 the previous autumn. 



Calyx. — Small, five-parted. 



Corolla. — Varying from lemon to orange and red, funnel-form, 

 somewhat irregular. Tube glandular-hairy, about the length of 

 the corolla-lobes ; border five-lobed, about two inches broad. 



Stamens. — Five, long-exserted, declined, filaments slender, 

 yellow ; anthers awnless, cells opening by terminal ]^ores. 



Pistil. — Ovary superior, five-celled ; style slender, three inches 

 long, yellow. 



Fruit. — Cai)sule, linear-oblong, erect, more or less downy. 



Hardly inferior to any of the garden varieties is our native Azalea ealen- 

 dulacea ; and one of the great sights of this continent for the lover of 

 flowers is the slopes of the southern Alleghany mountains when they are 

 blazing in June with the great flame-colored masses of this splendid plant. 



— Garden and Forest. 



3S^ 



