Concerning the Ericacea. 
161 
NOTES AND A QUERY CONCERNING THE ERICACEAE. 
By OHAS. H. CHANDLER, Ripon, Wis. 
Plants of the Heath Family are rarely found in regions where the soil 
is calcareous. The personal search of the writer m his leisure hours for 
some years, as well as inquiries made of botanists acquainted with the flora 
of several states, have disclosed no examples of Ericaceae in such regions 
except such as by their peculiar conditions seem to be exceptions tending 
to prove the general rule of their absence. 
The only vigorous growth found under such conditions has been that of 
the parasitic Monotropa, reported by several observers; but since its support 
is thus indirectly obtained from the soil, its growth is not inconsistent with 
the statement that the Ericaceae will not tolerate compounds of lime. 
Rare and feeble specimens of Pyrola rotundifolia are said to have been 
found in Ripon, Wis., in a region of Trenton limestone. But, as nearly as 
the two spots in which it was found can now be determined, they were 
both upon knolls of drift gravel, wdiere the effects of the underlying lime¬ 
stone must have been very slight, if not entirely absent. 
A vague account has been received of some one of the smaller species, 
Vaccinium having been found in or near Waupaca county, in a region of 
hard water. But here too it may be reasonably suspected that the condi¬ 
tions were like those mentioned in the case of the Pyrola, since the Vac¬ 
cinium was said to have been found in a region of knolls, and upon the 
knolls rather than between them. 
No other apparent exceptions have been found to the rule that calca¬ 
reous soils are unsuited to the growth of all members of the Heath Family, 
and this to a degree which is practically prohibitive. 
Several specimens of Kalmia latifolia, upon being carefully transplanted 
into a soil of weathered limestone and clay in Greene county, Ohio, died at 
once; and othei’s set in a black vegetable loam filling a long depression in 
the same soil lingered without any growth for some months and then died 
The query whether if is possible for any member of the Ericaceae to 
grow in a calcareous soil may lead to broader questions which have re¬ 
ceived very little attention from either writers on agriculture or botany, 
such as whether the non-adaptability of certain soils to certain plants may 
not often be due as much to the positive presence of injurious constituent 
11—A. & L. 
