HARPER'S GUIDE TO WILD FLOWERS 



inches across. In cultivation the flower becomes very large, 

 and is of white, yellow, pink, and red colors, one of the finest 

 shrubs of our gardens. I have found its large, shiny leaves 

 and showy blossoms wild on the borders of lakes in New Jer- 

 sey. It is low and spreading, growing in clumps in moist, 

 cold, shady places. In the Southern States, where it is more 

 common, it attains a height of 20 to 25 feet. Stem grayish, 

 and leaf-stalks yellow or yellowish green, covered with a 

 hoary down. Common through the Alleghanies, from New- 

 York to Georgia; rare in Xew England. 



Water Andromeda. Bog Rosemary 



Andromeda glaucophytta. — Family, Heath. Color, white, some- 

 times tinted with light pink. Leaves, linear or lance-shape, on 

 short petioles, with revolute margins, thick, glossy, evergreen, 

 pointed, white underneath. Calyx, of 5 nearly separate divi- 

 sions. Corolla, round, tubular, nearly closing at the mouth, 

 5-angled. Stamens, short, with divided, brown anthers opening 

 in pores at the top. Fruit, a 5-celled, many-seeded capsule. A 

 low, smooth shrub, 6 to 18 inches high, with terminal umbels of 

 flowers. 



Linnaeus himself named it after the fabled Andromeda. 

 He came across it in Lapland, and says: 



" This plant is always fixed on some little turfy hillock in 

 the midst of the swamps, as Andromeda herself was chained 

 to a rock in the sea, which bathed her feet, as the fresh water 

 does the roots of this plant. Dragons and venomous ser- 

 pents surrounded her, as toads and other reptiles frequent 

 the abode of her vegetable resembler. ... As the distressed 

 virgin cast down her blushing face through excessive afflic- 

 tion, so does this rosy-colored flower hang its head, growing 

 paler and paler, till it withers away. ... At length comes 

 Perseus, in the shape of summer, dries up the surrounding 

 water, and destroys the monsters." 



Wet, boggy places in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, north- 

 ward and westward. 



Stagger-bush 



Lybnia ma.ria.na.. — Family, Heath. Color, white. Leaves, thin, 

 oval or oblong, smooth above, black-dotted underneath, entire, 2 

 to 3 inches long, revolute along the margins. Bell-shape flowers 

 like those of Andromeda hang in clusters along the sides of 

 the almost leafless branches of the last season. Corolla, about 



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