DIOOTYLEDONES. 



205 



ornamental plants, as the English Primrose (Primula 

 vulgaris), English Cowslip (P. veris), Chinese Primrose (P. 

 sinensis), Cyclamen (Fig. 319), Dodecatheon, Lysivmehia, 

 etc. 



15. Ericaceae. The Heath family comprises about 

 seventeen hundred species, mostly shrubs, or small trees, 

 many evergreen, with anthers usually opening by a termi- 

 nal pore, and pollen grains compound. The Madronia of 

 the Pacific Coast of 

 the United States is 

 an evergreen tree, 

 eighty to a hundred 

 feet high, whose hard 

 wood is useful in cabi- 

 net-making. Arctosta- 

 phylos pungens and A. 

 glauea are evergreen 

 shrubs of California, ^ 

 whose heavy dark- 

 colored, fine-grained (^ 

 wood is used in tur- "^-' "^-^^ 

 nery. The leaves of 

 the Bearberry (A. Uvorursi) of the colder regions of 

 North America, Europe, \ind Asia are bitter, astringent, 

 and medicinal. The stems of the Heath of Europe (Ctei- 

 luna vulgaris'), a straggling evergreen undershrub, are made 

 use of for brooms, and the flowers are jieh in honey. The 

 Wintergreen, or Checkerberry (Gaultheria procumbens), 

 has aromatic fruit and foliage ; the latter yields oil in distil- 

 lation. The genus Erica includes four hundred species, 

 all in Europe, Asia, and Africa; many of them are found 



Fig. 310. Cyclamen. 



