ANDROMEDA MARIANA. 
We are indebted to Meehan’s Native Flowers and 
Ferns for our illustration, and for the following de¬ 
scription of the Andromeda, one of our most beautiful 
native shrubs, and one that is sadly neglected. 
Andromeda was a fair Ethiopian princess, who, ac¬ 
cording to the pretty story of Ovid, in the fourth book 
tinge, which gives them a somewhat faded look. Still, 
even these Philadelphia specimens are regarded as very 
beautiful, although they cannot lay claim to all the 
perfections of those of New Jersey growth. The plant 
from which our drawing was made came originally from 
the last-named State, and has been growing some years 
in the writer’s garden, in ordinary, light garden soil. 
It, therefore, represents about the average condition in 
which the collector of wild flowers is likely to find the 
species, and this is precisely the condition which we 
prefer for our work. We purposely 
avoid extraordinarily-beautiful or 
abnormally-developed specimens, as 
the reader might be disappointed 
in not being able to find anything 
which equals them in nature. 
The genus Andromeda is, in the 
main, an American one, and com¬ 
Andromeda 
(Stagger 
of his “ Metamorphoses,” was 
rescued from a terrible fate, and 
afterwards married by Perseus, 
the celebrated Greek hero. It 
is, of course, impossible to de¬ 
cide at this late day whether 
our princess had the proverbial 
Ethiopian skin, or whether she 
was “fair,” in the Caucasian 
sense. But, however that may 
be, our poets and painters 
represent her as having been 
among the fairest of the fair; and if this be true, she cer¬ 
tainly would have no reason to be ashamed of her name¬ 
sake Andromeda Mariana, which is one of the purest and 
fairest of the princesses of the kingdom of Flora. Our 
picture is a good representation of the flower, but no 
artist can do justice to its beauty, as seen growing in 
favorable seasons in the rich, peaty, lialf-swampy 
barrens of New Jersey. Snow is white, but the white¬ 
ness of these flowers excels it, owing to the delicate, 
waxy texture of the corollas. In Pennsylvania, where 
the plant is generally found in dryer soil, or sometimes 
even on rock, as for example, on the banks of the 
Wissahickon, near Philadelphia, the flowers are not so 
large, nor so abundant, and they often have a pink 
prises quite a number of species. 
Of all these, our Andromeda 
Mariana has the most beautiful 
flowiers, in this respect rivaling 
in size, as well as in appear¬ 
ance, some of the famous Heaths 
of the Cape of Good Hope, which are so much sought 
by cultivators. The habit of the plant, on the contrary, 
is not very beautiful, and in this particular the species 
is inferior to others of the same genus. Its growth is 
erect and sparse, and the leaves are deciduous; and as 
