12 



THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 



cult to transplant successfully that even now it would be hard 

 to establish in a new home across the sea. It belongs to the 

 Heath family and while some of its relatives may be more 

 valuable from a utilitarian point of view, (who, living in the 

 great American pie-belt, will question the value of the huckle- 

 berry?) it is one of our most exquisite wildflowers, having an 

 elusive charm that sets it apart from all others. 



It is a small trailing evergreen plant with rounded leaves 

 heart-shaped at the base and with stems bristling with rusty 

 hairs. The small pink flowers grow in clusters and are 

 dimorphic as to pistils and stamens and sub-dioecious — in other 

 words are of two kinds, one having a long pistil and short 

 stamens while the other has a short pistil and long stamens with 

 a tendency to unisexualism. The calyx has five sepals and the 

 corolla is salver-shaped and five-lobed, with a slender tube that 

 is hairy within and which holds ten stamens and one pistil with 

 a five-lobed stigma. The many small seeds are held in a five- 

 lobed and five-celled capsule. 



The flowers have a delightful fragrance that is rare among 

 our flowers of early spring and this fragrance is often a guide 

 to the dainty spra3^s that are hidden among the leaves. The 

 plant grows in sandy woods and has a wide distribution rang- 

 ing from Newfoundland to Minnesota and southward to 

 Florida but it is so exacting in its requirements and so im- 

 patient of interference that I doubt if it really is ''common" in 

 any part of its range — certainly it is not so in Central New 

 York, where we think it worth an annual pilgrimage to see. 



I have read that the difliculty in cultivating it arises from 

 the fact that it grows only in acid soil which, of course, all 

 horticulturists would carefully avoid when trying to propagate 

 an unusual plant. Whether this is really true, or whether it is 

 simply a lime hater, I do not know, but I have never known of 

 its being successfully grown in gardens. 



