ERICACEAE (HEATH FAMILY) 309 
Much loss is credited to this poisonous little plant when flocks 
are turned out to pasture in the spring. It does most damage 
when small, for animals are most likely to eat it when the shoots 
are young and tender and but a few inches above the ground. 
Children also have been poisoned by mistaking its first little pinkish 
leaves for young wintergreens (Gaulthéria proctimbens). 
It is a shrub, six inches to nearly three feet tall, slender, with a 
few nearly erect branches and round, smooth twigs. Leaves ever- 
green, thick, smooth, entire-edged, pointed at 
both ends, dark green above, light green below, 
an inch to two inches long and a quarter-inch 
to a half-inch wide, with short petioles — about 
a third of an inch; they grow in opposing pairs 
or in whorls of three. Flowers beautiful, clus- 
tered on the sides of the twigs at the base of 
-the season’s new growth; they are small, five- 
lobed, saucer-shaped, bright pink or crimson in 
color, a little more than a quarter-inch broad, 
with thread-like pedicels a half-inch to an inch 
long. Each small saucer has around its sides 
tiny pockets into which the ten red anthers are 
tucked, the filaments of the stamens being 
bent like a spring. When these are touched 
by the tongues of foraging insects—or with a Fie. 215. — Nar- 
needle — the anthers are released with a snap, tow-leaved Laurel 
flinging out the pollen. Capsule five-celled, betas i i 
globose, about an eighth of an inch in diameter, 
with the thread-like, persistent style thrust out from a deep 
dimple in its apex. Seeds very small, round, and slightly flattened. 
(Fig. 215.) 
Means of contrel 
Grub out or hand-pull the plants in the spring, when the soil is 
soft. Animals do not often eat the old shrubs, but those are the 
ones that bloom and fruit and bring on the dangerous young shoots. 
Cutting the plants causes them to sprout from the roots, unless 
prevented by the use of a strong herbicide such as caustic soda. 
