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. 



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

 congregated ; of no appHcation 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, tw^o 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. 



Flowei's. — 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. — Deej^ly 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. 



Stame?is. — 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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