ERICACEAE. 



523 



2. Black Bearberry. 



Arctostaphylos alpina, Spreng. 

 (Fig. 624.) 



(Arbutus, Eng. Bot. t. 2030.) 



A low, creeping shrub, with shorter 

 and more herbaceous branches than those 

 of the last species ; the leaves rather 

 narrower, and very different in con- 

 sistence, being thin, strongly veined, 

 toothed at the top, and withering away 

 at the end of the season. Young shoots 

 surrounded by the scales of the leaf-buds, 

 which remain long persistent. Flowers 

 small, usually 2 or 3 together, on short, 

 drooping pedicels. 



A high alpine or arctic plant, com- 

 mon in the mountains of northern Eu- 

 rope, Asia, and America, and at high 

 altitudes in the more central chains of 

 the two former continents. In Britain, 

 only in the northern Highlands of Scotland, including Ben Nevis. 

 spring. 



Fig. 624. 



Fl. 



TV. ANDROMEDA. ANDROMEDA. 



Small shrubs or herb-like undershrubs, chiefly growing in peat-bogs, 

 with the flowers of an Arbutus, but a dry capsular fruit opening in as 

 many entire valves as it has cells, by slits placed in the middle of the 

 cells, not by the splitting of the partitions as in Menziesia, each cell 

 containing several seeds. 



A small genus, limited by some modern botanists to the single Bri- 

 tish species, but usually extended so as to comprise several other North 

 American, as well as Asiatic and European species. 



1. Marsh Andromeda. Andromeda polifolia, Linn. 



(Eig. 625.) 



(Eng. Bot. t. 713.) 



A low, branching, herb-like shrub, seldom above 6 inches high, and 

 quite glabrous. Leaves alternate, \ to 1 inch long, oblong-lanceolate, 



c 2 



