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 glauca. 



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 nimierous ; style slender, ex- 

 serted ; stigma depressed-capitate. 



Fruit Dei)ressed-globose capsule, glabrous about an eighth 



of an inch across. 



372 



