0357 



WILD ROSEMARY. 



Family: RHODORACEAE. [Translator's note: now in the Ericaceae family] 

 Reproductive system: DECANDRY, MONOGYNY. 



The marsh rosemary, Ledum palustre, LINN., is a shrub with a penetrating and 

 somewhat narcotic odor. It grows about a foot high. The stem is cylindrical, branching, 

 and covered with an ash-colored bark. The lower part is bare. Its new branches are 

 reddish yellow and covered with down. The leaves are alternate, oblong, and almost 

 sessile. Their margins fold under like those of rosemary leaves. They're green above; the 

 entire undersurface is covered with reddish rust-colored down. The flowers ordinarily 

 bloom twice a year. At first they're pedunculate, arranged in sessile corymbs at the ends 

 of the branches. Toward the end of the season they appear at the tips of the new seasonal 

 shoots and are sort of sessile around the middle of the branches. They're white but are 

 covered with reddish scales before they unfold. The calyx is small and has five teeth. The 

 corolla has five very deep divisions. The ten stamens insert at the bottom of the calyx. 

 The ovary is free, surmounted by a style and stigma. The fruit is a capsule with five 

 compartments and five valves that open from bottom to top. The numerous seeds insert 

 onto five thread-like placentas that are fused at the top of the central axis. 



FLOWERS: Early spring and toward the end of September. 



RANGE: Damp and peaty areas in France and parts of Europe. 



Nomenclature. The genus name Ledum was used by the ancients for a kind of 

 cistus. German, der porch, postkraut. 



