198 The Wintergreen. 



CHIMAPHILA— THE WINTERGREEN. 



Natural Order, Ericaceae ; Linnsean System, Decandria, Monogynia. G 

 ric Distinctions* — Calyx, five-parted; petals, five; stamens, ten, ere t* 

 anthers, fixed by the middle ; style, very short and thick ; capsule fi 

 celled, opening from the summit. 



C. vmbtllata. — Loaves, in fours or sixes, lanceolate, cuneate, toothed • fl 

 ers, corymbose ; style, immersed in the ovary. — PI. 29. Fig. 2. 



Chimaphila is compounded of two Greek words, signifying 

 winter, and to love, a kind of translation of the common name 

 Wintergreen. This, and the genus Pyrola, in which it was 

 once included, are composed of low, small plants, some of the© 

 half shrubby, and bearing very pretty and neat flowers. Thev 

 are all called Wintergreen, though the spicy aromatic shoots 

 and scarlet berries sold in the New England markets under that 

 name, and used for flavoring beer, are produced by another 

 plant of very similar habit, Gaultheria procumbe?is. The spe- 

 cies figured in PI. 29, is one of the most common and handsome. 

 The root is creeping, and woody, sending up angular stems.— 

 The leaves grow in whorls or clusters of from four to six. They 

 are evergreen, coriaceous, on short petioles, wedge-shaped, 

 serrate, smooth and shining. The flowers are in a small 

 corymb, on nodding peduncles, which are furnished with linear 

 bracts. The calyx has five roundish teeth or segments, much 

 shorter than the corolla. The petals are five, roundish, con- 

 cave, spreading, cream colored, with a tinge of purple at the 

 base. The stamens are ten, each with a two-celled anther, 

 each cell opening by a tubular orifice. The ovary is roundish, 

 depressed, furrowed, with a funnel-shaped cavity at top. The 

 style is straight, inversely conical, inserted in the cavity of the 

 germ, and concealed by the stigma, which is large, peltate, 

 convex, and moist. The capsules are erect, five-valved, five- 

 celled, and the seeds chaffy, very minute and numerous. It 

 inhabits dry woods, flowering in June and July, and some- 

 times is found in great abundance. 



Another beautiful species, very striking in its appearance, is 

 the Spotted Wintergreen, C. maculata. Its leaves are curiously 



