48 



STAGGER BUSH. 

 Pieris mariana (L.) Bentli. & Hook. 



Other name: Kill lamb. (Fig. 27.) 



Description and habitat. — A weak-limbed deciduous shrub, 2 to 4 feet 

 high, with thick conspicuously veined leaves and showy clusters of 

 tubular white flowers. It is frequent in low, damp soils near the coast 

 from Connecticut to Florida. 



BRANCH IVY. 



Leucothoe catesbaei (Walt.) A. Gray. 



Other names: Hemlock ; calf kill; leucothoe; dog laurel. (Fig. 28.) 

 Description and habitat. — An evergreen shrub, 2 to 4 feet high, with 

 thick, tapering, sharply saw- edged leaves and numerous axillary and 



terminal clusters of small white, 

 tubular, ill-smelling flowers, which 

 appear in April or May. It grows 

 abundantly, often forming dense 

 thickets along stream banks in the 

 Alleghany Mountains from West 

 Virginia to northern Georgia. 



LOGANIA FAMILY (LOGANIA- 

 CEAE). 



FALSE JESSAMINE. 

 Gelsemium sempervirens L. 



Other names: Yellow jessamine; 

 yellow jessamine of the South; 

 wild jessamine ; C arolin a j asmine ; 

 woodbine; Carolina wild wood- 

 bine; evening trumpet-flower. 

 (Fig. 29.) 



Description and habitat. — A 

 woody vine, often climbing over 

 shrubbery and trees to the height 

 of 30 feet or more. It has small, 

 evergreen leaves and large, fra- 

 grant, yellow flowers, 1 to 1£ 

 appear in 

 in 



Fig. 29.— False jessamine (Gelsemium sempervi- 

 rens), showing flowering spray, one-third natural 

 size. 



long, which 



inches 



March and April. It grows 

 woods and low grounds, from eastern Virginia and southern Tennessee 

 to the Gulf, and south westward into Mexico. The false jessamine 

 belongs to a family from which, in other regions, strychnine and the 

 dreaded arrow poison, curare, are obtained. Another species of the 



