HEATH FAMILY. Ericaceee. 



HEATH FAMILY. Ericaceae. 



Mostly shrubs and a few perennial herbs with simple 

 leaves and generally regular, perfect flowers, the corolla 

 of 4-5 lobes or petals, and as many or twice as many 

 stamens. Fruit a capsule or berry. Cross-fertilized by 

 various bees, by the beelike flies, butterflies, and moths. 

 To this family belong the blueberries, huckleberries, 

 and cranberries. 



Cree In The daintie8t member of the Heath 



Snowberry Family, with (often terra-cotta-colored) 

 Chiogenes roughish stems creeping closely over rocky 



serpyllifolia and mossy ground. The stiff dark olive 

 evergreen leaves are tiny, broad, ovate 

 pointed, and sparsely covered with brown- 

 ish hairs beneath ; the margin of the leaves rolled back- 

 ward. The tiny white flowers are bell-shaped with four 

 rounded lobes. They grow at the angles of the leaves 

 and assume a nodding position. The berry is shining 

 china white, ovate, and about inch long. Both leaf 

 and berry possess a wintergreen flavor. Branches 3-11 

 inches long. In cool damp woods and peat bogs, fre- 

 quent on hill-tops, from Me., south to N. Car., and west 

 to Minn. Found in Campton, N. H. The name (Greek) 

 means "snow-offspring" ; it is appropriately dainty. 



Also a trailing, hillside plant of a shrubby 



A*tes"phylos nature ' with more or less rudd - v ' hairv - 

 Uva-ursi rough branches. The toothless leaves are 



White or pink- thick, dark evergreen, round-blunt at the 

 white tip, narrowed at the base, and finely 



May-June ve i ne <j. The white or rarely pinkish 

 white flowers are bell-shaped or vase-shaped, and ai-e 

 borne in terminal clusters. The style extends far be- 

 yond the anthers, and is touched first by the tongue of 

 the visiting insect. The berry is an opaque red ; it is 

 dry and insipid. In dry rocky soil, from Me., south to 

 N. J., west to Minn., S. Dak., and Col. The name is 

 from apnroS, a bear, and 6ra<pvT(.rj, a berry ; the specific 

 title is mere Latin repetition Uva, a bunch or cluster of 

 fruit, and Ursus, a bear. 



328 



