MOUNTAIN LAUREL (Kalmia latifolia, Linn.). Evergreen shrub or tree, becoming 30 feet high, with dense, round head and crooked branches. Bark dark brown with tinge of red, scaly; branches red or yellow, smooth. Wood reddish brown, heavy, fine-grained. Buds large, scaly, sub-terminal ones contain flowers; leaf buds small, naked, axillary. Leaves alternate or irregularly whorled, oblong, tapering at both ends, leathery, stiff, dark green and shining above, yellow-green below; 3 to 4 inches long, on short petioles; evergreen, falling during second summer. Flowers in June; large terminal com pound corymbs, on viscid peduncles; perfect; calyx 5-parted, on 10-lobed disc; corolla, saucer-shaped, rosy or white purple markings in short tube, 10 tiny pouches below 5-parted with border; stamens 10, with anthers in pouches, and filaments bent over until time to discharge pollen, when they straighten; pistil I, with head on long style; ovary 5-celled. Fruit a
globular, woody, 5-celled, many-seeded capsule. Preferred habitat, cool, moist, well-drained soil that contains no lime. Sheltered situations in the North. Dist.: Nova Scotia to Lake Erie (north shore); southward through New England and New York and along Alleghenies to northern Georgia.