HEATH FAMILY. Ericaceae. 
woodland streams are bordered with these wonderful 
blossoms, leaning over the water and filling the air with 
their delicious fragrance. 
There are many kinds of Rhododendron, most abundant 
in Asia, resembling Azalea, but with evergreen, leathery 
leaves. The name is from the Greek, meaning “‘rose-tree.” 
, =. A magnificent shrub, the handsomest 
a Rose in the West, from three to fifteen feet 
Tiidodinliban high, with a grayish trunk and fine, 
Califérnicum evergreen foliage. The leaves are from 
Pink three to ten inches long, rich-green and 
Spring, summer jeathery, smooth but not shiny, paler on 
Northwest : Z 
the under-side, spreading out around the 
large flower-clusters, so as to set them off to great advan- 
tage, and the flowers are over two inches across, scentless, 
with small, pale sepals and pink corollas, almost white 
at the base and shading to deep pink at the edges, which 
are prettily ruffled. The upper petal is freckled with 
golden-brown, or greenish spots and arrow-shaped 
markings, the pistil is crimson and the stamens, with pale 
pink filaments and pale yellow anthers, curve in, like little 
serpents’ heads. The coloring of the flower clusters, mixed 
with the crimson-tipped buds, is a combination of delicate 
and brilliant tints and in such places as the redwood 
forests, along the Noyo River in California, where the 
shrub develops into a small tree, the huge clusters, glowing 
high above us among the dark forest trees, are a wonderful 
sight. This is the ‘State flower’’ of Washington. 
There are a good many kinds of Arctostaphylos, mostly 
western; evergreen shrubs, with very crooked branches; 
smooth, dark red or brown bark; alternate leaves, and 
usually nodding, white or pink flowers, with bracted 
pedicels, in terminal clusters, the parts usually in fives; 
the corolla urn-shaped; the stamens usually ten, not pro- 
truding, the filaments hairy; the ovary raised on a disk on 
the receptacle; the fruit berry-like, several nutlets sur- 
rounded by soft pulp. The leaves, by a twisting of their 
stalks, assume a vertical position on the branches, a habit 
which enables many plants of dry regions to avoid un- 
necessary evaporation. These shrubs are often very 
abundant and with Chaparral Pea, Buck Brush, Scrub 
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