420 THE VEGETABLE WORLD. 
unrivalled. Even the wild Moorland Heath of our mountains, 
although ranking among the lowliest of their race, are, for their 
beauty, objects worthy of the closest examination. In the North- 
ern parts of the island, Heather or Ling (Calluna vulgaris), 
mingling with other species, cover vast tracts of country, mingling 
their hues of purple, red, and pink, with the most’ brilliant effect. 
A cultivated variety of this species, with double flowers, is 
extremely beautiful, and the flowers of Zrica carnea are the 
earliest harbingers of spring. : 
The Strawberry-tree (Arbutus unedo), whose ripe red fruit of the 
past year is borne at Christmas-time on the same branch which 
supports the drooping panicled cluster of flowers of the present, 
is one of the most agreeable objects in nature. 
The trailing Azalea procumbens of the Scottish mountains, with 
leafy branches, tortuous stem, and small elliptical leaves with 
revolute margins, five-parted purple calyx, and bell-shaped :orolla, 
is a pleasing object on the hill-side; but in the Western hemi- 
sphere, ranging from Canada to Georgia, it is a shrub three to 
twenty feet high, and of exquisite beauty, mingling its foliage with 
the shrubby leaves of A. vircora, green on both sides, and fringed at 
the edge with deliciously fragrant whitish tubular flowers, or, from 
New York to Virginia, with the small dark- green shining leaves of A. 
nitida, hairy on the midrib and the margin, and reddish-white tubular 
flowers. The American species seem to culminate in A. arborescens, 
described by Pursch as a beautiful species rising from ten to — 
twenty feet, which grows on rivulets near the Blue Mountains, 
Pennsylvania, forming with its elegant foliage and large abundant 
rose-coloured flowers, the finest ornamental ‘shrub with which he 
was acquainted. f 
The Indian and Chinese Azaleas (A. sinensis) approach nearer 
to the Rhododendrons, having downy leaves, flowers with silky 
petals, leaves glaucous underneath, bell-shaped corolla with seg- 
ments broadly ovate, wavy, and the upper one dotted after the 
manner of the Rhododendron. A. Indica again, forms a bush two 
to six feet high, with drooping branches, leaves deep brownish 
green, and half evergreen, with large showy and_brilliantly- 
marked flowers. oe 
But these native plants sink into insignificance when co! pared = 
with the gorgeous specimens which are produced in hundreds — 
