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PARK AND CEMETERY. 
GARDEN PLANTS— THEIR GEOGRAPHY— XXXVI. 
ERICALES. 
THE VACCINEUM, ERICA AND EPACRIS ALLIANCE. 
This alliance of plants has 13 tribes, 104 gen- 
era and 1660 species. They constitute perhaps the 
most beautiful group of flowering trees and shrubs 
known to sub-tropical and temperate regions. They 
are very largely evergreen, and their flowers are so 
conspicuously handsome in form and chaste in color, 
that they have become prime favorites with all who 
can grow them. They are represented in most parts 
of the world, but at the sea-level of the tropics their 
representation in gardens may often prove difficult, 
for in the eastern hemisphere at least I do not re- 
member having seen a single showy representative 
of the alliance at any altitude lower than 5 000 
feet. They seem to arch over the tropics at that 
and h'ghcr elevations. Yet a number of “tropical” 
species are recorded at insular stations, in South 
America and the South Pacific Islands. Their 
distribution as species or even as tribes is not gen- 
eral, but rather local; for instance the Vaccineae 
are chiefly American, the Ericeas chiefly African 
and European, and the Epacrideae Australasian, 
with a single Lc .ctanthus in antarctic Terra del 
Fuego. With a few exceptions too the parasitic 
Mono.ropeae arc North American, while the Gal- 
axere arc equally divided between that continent 
and northeastern Asia. Trees, shrubs and herbs 
are all represented; a few are bog plants, some of 
the Vaccinea from Peru and Chili are said to be 
parasites, and the curious “Fir-rapes,” “corpse 
plants,” and Lennoeae are root parasites — almost 
never- cultivated. Several species of the various 
tribes yield succulent fruits, and different portions of 
the plants are edible in others. Some are however 
poisonous. 
The Thibaudieae arc largely sub tropical and 
tropical plants found from Mexico, the West Indies 
and British Guiana, through the mountainous parts 
of South America, with a single outlyer recorded 
from New Guinea, and some five species of Pentap- 
terygium from the Himalayas. 
The Vaccinieie are more familiar, and contain 
several plants yeilding huckleberries, blueberries, 
cranberries, creeping snowberries, etc. Vaccineum 
corymbosum has nice fruit, rather pretty flowers, and 
highly colored foliage in autumn. V. arboreum 
grows to 20 feet high at the south. In transplant- 
ing these plants from wild localities their tops should 
be sheared close down, when they will usually grow. 
There are several representatives of the tribe on the 
Andes, and the mountains of tropical Asia. 
Arbutus has 10 species in the Pacific United 
States and Europe. The “Madrona” A. Menziesii 
is a fine tree ranging from 60 to 80 or more feet 
high at northern Pacific coast points, with evergreen 
foliage, and orange colored unpalatable fruit. There 
are several lower growing smaller leaved forms 
found at points southward to Mexico. A. Unedois 
the European “strawberry tree” found wild only at 
the lakes of Killarney in the British Isles, and hardy 
in Georgia and other states of the middle south. 
There are several varieties of Unedo, and hybrids 
between it and A. Andrachne, aspecies from eastern 
Mediterranean regions. 
Arctostaphylos, “bearberry,” has 15 species in 
cold and temperate parts of the northern hemis- 
phere, and southward on the mountains to Mexico. 
They are .dwarf shrubs, or occasionally 20 feet high 
evergreen or deciduous trees in California, some are 
grown in parks and gardens. 
Pernettya in 15 species aie from sub-tropical 
South America, New Zealand and Tasmania. They 
are evergreen shrubs with pendulous white flowers 
and variously colored berries. 
Gaultheria has 95 species in North America, 
South America, on the mountains in tropical Asia, 
in Japan and Australasia. The “ Wintergrecn” 
“tea-berry” is a common little native plant, but 
rarely taken into the garden. 
Cassandra calyculata, Cassiope, in about 10 
species, and Leucothoe in a similar number have 
PIERIS MARIANA. 
between them absorbed a large number of the plants 
which the nurserymen who are not up to date, con- 
tinue to catalogue after Linmeus and other old time 
botanists. 
Oxydcndron arboreum is a monotypi chand- 
