226 Ornamental Shrubs. 



familiar with the discarded name, and might be at a loss 

 to recognize old favorites under the rearrangement of 

 titles. No more interesting and useful plants for orna- 

 mental purposes than those here described can be found, 

 and they will prove as meritorious under the new titles as 

 under the old. 



The name andromeda was first applied by Linnaeus to 

 a small semi-aquatic plant of the order EricacecB, discovered 

 on one of his exploring tours in the North, and the great 

 naturalist was seldom more enthusiastic in his praise of 

 plant or flower than when he wrote of the water andromeda, 

 and described it in his Tour of Lapland. " The flowers 

 are quite blood-red before they expand, but when fully 

 grown the corolla is of flesh color. Scarcely any painter's 

 art can so happily imitate the beauty of a fine female com- 

 plexion ; still less could any artificial color on the face itself 

 bear comparison with the lovely blossom. As I looked 

 upon it I could not help thinking of Andromeda as 

 described by the poets, and the more I meditated on their 

 descriptions the more applicable they seemed to the little 

 plant before me, so that if these writers had it in view 

 they could scarcely have contrived a more apposite fable. 

 This plant is always fixed in some turfy hillock in the 

 midst of swamps, as Andromeda herself was chained to a 

 rock in the sea which bathed her feet as the fresh water 

 does the root of this plant." 



A. polifolia, the species so poetically described by the 

 flower-lover, is indigenous to America as well as to northern 

 Europe, where it is often called wild rosemary. It is 

 found in wet, boggy land alike in New Jersey and Min- 



