HEATH FAMILY 
Leaves.—Alternate, usually clustered at the ends of the branches, 
persistent, elliptical, oblong, four to ten inches long, wedge-shaped 
or rounded at base, entire, thickened slightly, revolute margin, 
acute apex. They come out of the bud revolute, pale green, cov- 
ered with thick pale tomentum. When full grown are smooth, 
thick, leathery, dark green and shining above, pale beneath ; mid- 
rib broad, pale, depressed above, prominent beneath ; veinlets ob- 
scure. Petioles stout, short, terete. 
Flowervs.—June, after the shoots of the year from the buds below 
the flower-buds are well grown. Borne in umbellate clusters four 
or five inches in diameter, perfect, pale rose, or white. Pedicels 
viscid; bracts caducous. 
Caly.x.—Five-lobed ; lobes rounded, imbricate in bud. 
Corolla.—Campanulate, gibbous on the posterior side, hairy in 
the throat, pale rose, purplish, or white, five-lobed ; lobes rounded, 
veined ; upper lobe marked with yellow greenish spots. 
Stamens.—Eight to twelve, white, inserted ona disk; filaments, 
unequal, declined, bearded; anthers attached on the back, two- 
celled ; each cell opening by a terminal pore. 
Pistil_—Ovary superior, five-celled, hairy; style long, white, de- 
clined ; stigma red, five-lobed ; ovules many in each cell. 
Frruit.—Capsule, surrounded at base by the persistent calyx and 
crowned with the style. 
* The Rhododendron becomes a tree in the south only ; on 
the mountains of Pennsylvania, New York, and Virginia it 
remains a shrub, but one of the most attractive shrubs in our 
flora. Both leaf and flower are matured in midsummer and 
they are so large and crown the summit of the stem so per- 
fectly that they cannot escape observation. 
The Rhododendron, the Kalmia, the Holly, and the Holly- 
leaved Mahonia make up our northern list of broad-leaved 
evergreens. All other broad-leaved trees of our flora have 
become deciduous. Here and there individual oaks retain 
their leaves all winter ; so do many young beeches. ‘These 
persistent leaves are brown and withered it is true, but they 
speak of a time when the trees were evergreen. The Oak 
family still retains an evergreen species, and in South 
America the forests of Patagonia wave green and dark with 
an evergreen beech. 
The Rhododendron flourished in the arctic regi¢us in 
tertiary times, and traces of several species are found in the 
miocene rocks of Europe. 
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