THE HEATHS - THE RHODODENDRON AND THE MOUNTAIN LAUREL FAMILY ERICACEAE. Trees usually of small size and high ornamental value. Leaves simple, alternate, mostly evergreen. Flowers perfect, regular, in many-flowered clusters. Fruits, dry capsules or berry-like drupes.
KeY TO GENERA AND SPECIES A. Leaves evergreen or sub-evergreen.
B. Flowers large, showy; fruit a 5-celled capsule. C. Capsules conical; flower clusters terminal.
I. Genus RHODODENDRON, Linn.
(R. maximum) GREAT RhODODENDRON CC. Capsules globular; flower clusters axillary.
2. Genus KALMIA, Linn.
(K. latifolia)•MOUNTAIN LAUREL BB. Flowers small, in compound racemes; fruit a fleshy drupe; bark shed in thin scales.
3. Genus ARBUTUS, Linn.
C. Bark red to brown; leaves oval.
D. Fruit orange red, inch in diameter.
(A. IVIenziesiz) MADROF4A DD. Fruit dark red, inch in diameter.
(A. Xalapensis) MEXICAN MADRORA CC. Bark red to pale grey; leaves lanceolate.
Ar4onica) ARIZONA AA. Leaves deciduous; flowers small, numerous, in terminal compound racemes; fruit a conical 5-celled capsule.
4. Genus OXYDENDRUM, DC.
(0. arboreum) SOURWOOD The heath family is world-wide in distribution, consisting of more than fifty genera, with over a thousand species, and modified through centuries of cultivation into unnumbered 4horticultural varieties. Heaths are perennials, usually woody, with a tendency to profuse and showy bloom. The type of the family is the Scotch heather, immortalised in song and story. A very few genera are represented by tree forms.
In the first quarter of the nineteenth century, when the English first took possession of the Cape of Good Hope, they introduced into England heaths from Australia and South Africa. Their popularity was instant. People went wild over them. They became the dominant feature of the indoor horticulture of the day—the pride of the English gardener. The heydey of these heaths is past. But even now, in London, half a million little potted plants of a single species, Erica h yemalis , are sold each Christmas. An average plant a foot high bears a thousand tiny flowers, rosy and tipped with white. It is good for a month of bloom, and costs from twenty-five to fifty cents. It is the poor man's Christmas flower. The azaleas, which the Belgian
gardeners have brought to such perfection and variety, also belong to this family.
x. Genus RHODODENDRON, Linn.
Rhododendrons have a hard reputation. Their juice is considered poisonous to man and beast. Honey made from these flowers was believed to have crazed Xenophon's retreating host. Browsing animals were hurt by tasting the leaves and shoots. In his Herbal, Turner wrote of the Italian rhododendron: "I care not if it neuer com into England, seyng it in all poyntes is lyke a Pharesy; that is, beauteus without, and within a rauenus wolf and murderer." The American rhododendrons are our most ornamental evergreen shrubs. Only one becomes tree-like in size and habit. It attains its greatest height on the mountain slopes of the Caro linas and eastern Tennessee. Here it spreads over considerable areas, often forming impenetrable jungles of great beauty, winter and summer.
Great Rhododendron, Rose Bay (Rhododendron maximum, Linn.)—Evergreen shrub or small tree, becoming 35 feet high, with dense, broad head of twisted branches. Bark reddish brown, scaly; branches rusty tomentose at first, becoming greyish.
Wood light brown, hard, heavy, fine. Buds scaly, prominent; leaf buds small, axillary, on flowerless branches; flower buds large, conical, terminal. Leaves narrow oblong, tapering to a short petiole; apex abruptly pointed; margin entire, leathery, stiff, dark green, shining above, dull whitish beneath, 4 to to inches long. Flowers, June, in large umbels, on viscid stems; corollas irregular, bell shaped, 5-lobed, 11 inches across, rosy, purplish or white, with hairy and spotted throat; stamens 8 to 12, curved; pistil simple, with 5-celled ovary and elongated style with 5-lobed red stigma. Fruit a woody, 5-celled many-seeded capsule. Preferred habitat, sandy, peaty or loamy soil, in somewhat shady situations. Distribution, New Brunswick to Florida; west to Lake Erie, through Gulf States to Louisiana and Arkansas. Mainly along mountains. Rare north of Pennsylvania. Uses: Valuable hardy ornamental evergreen. Forced for winter bloom as potted plants.