Corolla urn-shaped or bell-shaped, 5-toothed or 5-cleft, deciduous. Stamens 10, anthers pointless, shorter than the filaments, opening by terminal pores. Capsule 5-celled, 5-valved, septicidal (as are all the succeeding), many-seeded.—Low alpine Heath-like evergreen undershrubs, clothed with scattered linear and obtuse smooth or rough-margined leaves. Flowers usually nodding on solitary or umbelled peduncles at the summit of the branches. Our species belongs to § Phyllódoce. (Βρύον, moss, and ἄνθος flower, because growing among mosses.)
1. B. taxifòlius, Gray. Calyx pubescent; corolla oblong-urn-shaped, 5-toothed, purplish, smooth; style included. (Phyllodoce taxifolia, Salisb.)—Alpine summits of the mountains of N. H. and Maine, and northward. July.
14. KÁLMIA, L. American Laurel.
Calyx 5-parted. Corolla between wheel-shaped and bell-shaped, 5-lobed, furnished with 10 depressions in which the 10 anthers are severally lodged; filaments long and thread-form. Capsule globose, 5-celled, many-seeded.—Evergreen mostly smooth shrubs, with alternate or opposite entire coriaceous leaves, naked buds, and showy flowers. (Dedicated to Peter Kalm, a pupil of Linnæus, who travelled in this country about the middle of the last century, afterwards Professor at Abo.)
§ 1. Flowers in simple or clustered naked umbel-like corymbs; pedicels from the axils of small and firm foliaceous persistent bracts; calyx smaller than the pod, persistent; leaves and branches glabrous, or nearly so.
1. K. latifòlia, L. (Calico-bush. Mountain Laurel. Spoon-wood.) Leaves mostly alternate, bright green both sides, ovate-lanceolate or oblong, acute at each end, petioled; flowers profuse, large and very showy, varying from deep rose-color to nearly white; corymbs terminal, many-flowered, clammy-pubescent; pod depressed, glandular.—Rocky hills and damp soil, Canada and Maine, chiefly along the mountains to W. Fla., west to Ohio, Ky., and Tenn. Usually a shrub 4–8° high, but in the mountains from Penn. southward forming dense thickets and often tree-like (10–30° high). May, June.
2. K. angustifòlia, L. (Sheep Laurel. Lambkill. Wicky.) Shrub 1–3° high; leaves commonly opposite or in threes, pale or whitish underneath, light green above, narrowly oblong, obtuse, petioled; corymbs lateral (appearing later than the shoots of the season), slightly glandular, many-flowered; pod depressed, nearly smooth; pedicels recurved in fruit.—Hillsides, Newf. to Mich., south to N. Ga.; common. May, June. The flowers more crimson and two thirds smaller than in the last.
3. K. glaùca, Ait. (Pale Laurel.) Branchlets 2-edged; leaves opposite, nearly sessile, oblong, white-glaucous beneath, with revolute margins; corymbs terminal, few-flowered, smooth; bracts large; flowers ½´ broad, lilac-purple; pod ovoid, smooth.—Cold peat-bogs and mountains, Newf. to Penn., Minn., and northward. May, June.—Straggling, about 1° high.
§ 2. Flowers scattered, solitary in the axils; calyx leafy, larger than the pod, nearly equalling the corolla, deciduous; leaves and branches bristly-hairy.
4. K. hirsùta, Walt. Branches terete; leaves oblong or lanceolate (4´´ long), becoming glabrous.—Sandy pine-barren swamps, S. E. Va. to Fla. May–Sept.—Shrub 1° high; corolla rose-color.