Heath Family (Ericaceæ)
(A) Spotted Wintergreen (Chimaphila maculata) is a very handsome plant that we often come across in our rambles through rich woodland. The stalk, rising from 3 to 9 inches high, is of a ruddy color; the leaves are thick, smooth, irregularly toothed, lance-shaped, pointed, and with conspicuous whitish streaks following the veins. In July and August it bears one to five nodding flowers on long, erect peduncles above the topmost whorl of leaves. It ranges from Me., Ontario, and Minn. southward to Ga. and Miss.
(B) Pipsissewa; Prince’s Pine (Chimaphila umbellata) grows in similar localities and is generally more common than the last. Its leaves are usually in two whorls about the brownish stem; they are bright shining green, toothed, unspotted, pointed, but broadened toward the end. The flowers are similar to the last and are in a loose 2- to 8-flowered umbel. The style is very short, with a five-parted gummy stigma. This species is found from N. S. to Ga. and westward.
(A) Shin-leaf (Pyrola elliptica) is the most common of the Pyrolas. The evergreen leaves are bright green, obscurely toothed, broadly elliptical and narrowing into long stems that clasp at the base. During May a long, smooth scape springs from the middle of the group of basal leaves to a height of 5 to 10 inches, bearing near its top a raceme of several flowers. It is common throughout the United States and southern Canada.
(B) One-flowered Pyrola (Moneses uniflora) externally closely resembles the preceding species. The flower scape is from 2 to 5 inches high, and at the summit bears, during June or July, a single nodding flower. It ranges from Labrador to Alaska and south to Pa. and Minn.
(C) Indian Pipe; Corpse Plant (Monotropa uniflora) is a very peculiar, ghostly appearing plant found commonly in dimly lighted rich woods. It has no green foliage, just white bract-like appendages on its upright, white, cold, clammy stem. A single white flower nods from the top. It is parasitic, drawing its nourishment from living roots or decaying vegetable matter. Common throughout our range.
Swamp Honeysuckle; White Azalea (Rhododendron viscosum) is a most beautiful swamp shrub with handsome, fragrant, white flowers. In low, wet swamps it is very common and blooms very profusely during June and July. The bush is from 3 to 8 feet in height and very branchy. The leaves are long-oval, broadest toward the blunt-pointed tip and narrowing to short stems.
The beautiful flowers are pure white, or rarely tinged with pink; the tube of the long corolla is covered with very sticky brownish hairs, and terminates in five, large-pointed spreading lobes. The stamens are very long, slender, and white, and tipped with yellow anthers. The five-pointed calyx is very small and inconspicuous.
During the early time of their bloom all the Azaleas bear hanging among the fragrant flowers, peculiar, juicy, pulpy growths that are edible, as any well-bred farmer’s boy knows; he calls them May or Swamp Apples, but they are really modified buds and not fungous growths or caused by insects, as was formerly believed. These beautiful Azaleas are found from Me. to Ohio and southward.
(A) Pink Azalea; Pinxter Flower; Wild Honeysuckle (Rhododendron nudiflorum) is one of our most interesting wild shrubs, interesting because the flowers bloom before the leaves appear, or just as they commence to grow, and because of the very beautiful colors its pink flowers impart to our swamps during April and early May. The flowers are practically the same in form as the white varieties, except that the corolla tube is shorter.
Pink Azalea grows in open woods or swamps from Me. to Ill. and southward.
(B) Rhodora (Rhododendron canadense) is a beautiful member of this family, immortalized in verse by Emerson. It is a smaller shrub, growing from 1 to 3 feet high. The flowers usually appear before the pale-green, oblong leaves; the corolla is about one inch long, light magenta, and two-lipped. The upper lip is three-lobed and the lower is nearly divided into two distinct linear petals. They grow in thin clusters terminating the branches. Rhodora is found on damp hillsides and in swamps from Newfoundland to Quebec and south to N. J. and Pa., flowering during May and June.
American Rhododendron; Great Laurel (Rhododendron maximum) is a large, tall, and very ornamental shrub growing from 5 to 35 feet high. It is one of the most characteristic shrubs of the Alleghany Mountain region, where it grows in such profusion as to form almost impenetrable thickets. As it is a very hardy shrub and not injured by transplanting, it is very often used for decorative effects in parks and about private dwellings.
The oblong leaves are deep, glossy green, tough and leathery in texture, and have a smooth, slightly rolled-under edge. They droop in the winter season but are widespread in summer.
At the ends of the numerous branches, during June and July, are showy clusters of pink or white flowers. Each blossom spreads nearly two inches and is composed of five broad, blunt-ended petals of a pink-white color spotted with golden-orange. They have ten spreading stamens and a small pistil.
Rhododendron is found in rich, hilly, or mountainous woods, commonly from Pa. to Ga. but rarely northward to Ontario and Nova Scotia.
Mountain Laurel; Spoon-wood (Kalmia latifolia) is one of the most popular of our beautiful flowering shrubs. In the North it grows from 3 to 8 feet in height, but in the Southern States it often attains heights of 20 to 30 feet.
The leaves are dark, glossy green, pointed at each end and oblong in shape; they are arranged alternately along the branches and in dense terminal clusters. The flowers are very peculiar in their construction, the corolla being deep saucer- or bowl-shaped, with five short, broad lobes; on the outside, around the bottom edge of the “bowl,” are ten small humps, that inside the corolla form little pockets to receive the anthers of the slender white stamens, curving from the centre of the blossom like the spokes of a wheel.
Both moths and bees visit these flowers in quest of the little supply of nectar that is secreted about the base of the greenish pistil. The flower stems are sticky so that only winged insects can get to the interior. Laurel is common from N. B. to Ont. and southward.
Sheep Laurel; Lambkill (Kalmia angustifolia) is a small, shrubby species, ranging from 8 to 36 inches high. Besides the common names given above, it is less often known as “Sheep Poison” and “Wicky,” a rather sinister lot of names to be applied to a shrub with such handsome flowers.
All of the Laurels have dangerous properties, the juices of the leaves being very poisonous. It is also claimed that honey made by bees feeding on the nectar from Laurel blossoms is also poisonous. This species gets its many names, referring to its destructive effects on sheep, because it grows in abundance in pastures suitable only for the pasturage of sheep. The leaves of this small Laurel look tempting but are often very fatal to the animals eating them.
Their shapes, forms, and mechanisms are about like those of the Mountain Laurel, but the color is a beautiful, deep pink; little red anthers fit snugly in the ten little pockets formed for them in the surface of the corolla. Sheep Laurel is common from Lab. to Ont. and southward, blooming in June and July.
(A) Wintergreen; Checkerberry (Gaultheria procumbens). I doubt if there is a country boy or girl within the range of this plant, and it extends from Newfoundland to Manitoba and southward to the Gulf, who is not perfectly familiar with it.
The leaves are all clustered at the top of the ruddy stem that grows from 2 to 5 inches high; those of adult plants are deep, shining green, ovate-pointed, and very sparingly toothed. Usually two white tubular, 5-notched flowers hang on slender peduncles, just beneath the spreading leaves, during July and August.
(B) Trailing Arbutus; Mayflower (Epigæa repens). Arbutus is a creeping plant; the stems are tough, hairy, and branched; they spread out along the ground for 6 to 15 inches from the root. The evergreen, alternating leaves are tough, oval, slightly heart-shaped at the base, net-veined and toothless. The flowers are in terminal clusters, opening in April and May. They are five-parted, delicate pink, and have a fragrance similar to that of the Water Lily. Arbutus grows throughout the eastern half of our continent on shady, rocky hillsides.
(A) Labrador Tea (Ledum grœnlandicum) is an erect shrub growing from 1 to 3 feet high. It is not uncommon in suitable places in the eastern half of Canada, and is found rarely in mountains south to Conn., Pa., and Minn.; its habitat is in bogs or damp thickets. The narrowly oblong leaves are green above, have the edges rolled back, and are covered beneath with a rusty wool.