EPIGiE'A RETENS. 
CREEPING EPIGiEA. 
Class. 
DECANDRIA. 
Order. 
MONOGYNIA. 
Natural Order. 
RHOBORACE.E. 
Native of 
Height 
Flowers in 
Duration 
Introduced 
N.America. 
6 inches. 
April, June. 
Perennial. 
in 1736. 
No. 919. 
The prostrate habit of this genus has obtained 
for it a corresponding name. Epigsea is derived 
from the Greek epi, upon ; gaia, the earth. Its 
specific name, too, further recognises its humble 
mode of growth. 
Although a very lowly shrub, it is one well 
deserving of cultivation. It is a native of stony 
places, on the sides of hills, beneath the shelter of 
stronger subjects; sometimes courting the shade of 
lofty pines, where man has never intruded the 
plough or the spade to disturb it of aboriginal 
possession. 
This small shrub may be admitted even to the 
herbaceous department, without violence to good 
taste. It is but idle to institute laws to exclude 
shrubs from amongst herbaceous plants, in the 
flower garden; or herbaceous plants from every 
part of the shrubbery. Nature establishes no such 
principle. Convenience must sometimes be ad- 
mitted as the law-giver ; and, subservient to this, 
good taste in arrangement can always gratify the 
eye, by a suitable admixture of plants, whether 
they be of one class, or of all the classes with 
