HEATH FAMILY 



the Dutch revered only less than the festival of their 

 own patron saint. With the prescribed religious ob- 

 servances the Pingster days had many features of the 

 Saturnalia and were in that staid community a time of 

 unwonted license. The slaves then had their holiday 

 and held riot, awakening on the banks of the Hudson 

 the wild echo of strains which had been chanted on 

 the Congo and the Gambia. But the custom in 

 Nieuw Amsterdam which is fairest in retrospect, and 

 which lingered longest, was the gathering of the Ping- 

 stcr-blocm. . . . From the day's woodland revels, 

 the youths and maidens returned laden with the 

 branches of the Pingster-bloem, to adorn the houses. 

 This yearly gathering- of the Azalea is the nearest 

 spontaneous approach to a May Day celebration 

 which has ever thrived in our capricious climate. 

 This may be explained not only by the matchless 

 beaut v of the svlvan spoil, but bv the great rever- 

 ence with which Whitsunday was regarded in every 

 branch of the Christian church." 



MOUNTAIN AZALEA 



Azalea canescens. 



A mountain form, native to the Catskill and Shawangunk 

 mountains and southward along the Alleghanies. 



A branching shrub, four to fifteen feet high, the 

 twigs glabrous or sparingly pubescent. Leaves oval, 

 elliptic or sometimes obovate, wider and shorter than 

 those of Azalea nudiflora, more or less soft canescent 



and pale beneath, and stiff hairy or pubescent on the 

 veins, varying to nearly glabrous, the margins ciliolate- 



350 



