XX. 9. COMMON AMERICAN ROSE BAY. 385 
on the ground, and its central stems rising to the height of from 
three to six or seven feet. It forms round or straggling clumps 
or islets in the swamps where it is found. In more southern 
States, it sometimes rises to the height of twenty or twenty-five 
feet, with a diameter of four or five inches. The stem is gray- 
ish, and rough with loose, broken flakes of bark. The recent 
shoots are large, and, with the leaf-stalks, are yellow or of a 
yellowish green color, often covered with white dust. The 
older branches are dark purple and soon turn gray. 
When the leaves first begin to expand, they are of a reddish 
color and covered with an abundant red down or cotton. When 
fully expanded, they are smooth, of a shining light, afterwards 
dark green above; when several years old, they become brown, 
coarse and rough. ‘Their lower surface is pale or rust-colored. 
They are from three or four to eight or nine inches long,-and 
one or two broad, elliptic-oblong, round, obtuse, or acute at 
base, with a very entire, slightly reflexed border, and ending in 
a rather sharp, entire point. Their texture is firm, tough and 
leathery, and they are supported on very stout footstalks, flat- 
tened or hollowed above, half an inch or an inch long. 
The flowers are in round, thyrse-hke, crowded clusters, from 
four to eight inches broad, on the ends of the branches. The 
large, conical, flower-buds are formed in September. Just be- 
fore expanding they are one or two inches long, and an inch 
broad, invested with a large number of concave, rhomboidal, 
pointed, more or less colored scales, one of which protects each 
separate flower-bud, and 4mong which the richly colored corolla 
is seen at intervals. 4s the flowers expand these scales fall off, 
leaving numerous scars at the base of the common flower- 
stem. Each flower is supported by a stalk one or two inches 
long, which, 2s well as the calyx leaves, is covered with a vis- 
cid or glutjtous down, and has long, thread-like, downy bracts, 
on each side at the base. The calyx is divided into five une- 
qual, vounded segments, of a delicate texture. ‘The corolla is 
of one piece, with a border expanding from a short tube into 
five unequal, oblong, rounded segments, the upper one of which 
is largest and has its cavity mottled with numerous small, yel- 
low or greenish or orange-colored spots. The color of the corolla 
50 
