The Heath family with seventy-one genera is widely distributed over the temperate and tropical parts of the earth’s surface. Of the twenty-one genera found in the United States seven have arborescent representatives.
CONSPECTUS OF THE ARBORESCENT GENERA OF THE UNITED STATES.
Ovary superior. Corolla of 4 petals; flowers in erect racemose panicles; leaves deciduous.1. [Elliottia.] Corolla gamopetalous, 5-lobed. Fruit capsular. Capsule septicidal, the valves in opening separating from the persistent placentiferous axis; calyx-lobes imbricated in the bud; leaves persistent (sometimes deciduous). Flowers in terminal clusters; corolla 5-lobed; inflorescence-buds conic, covered with closely imbricated scales; leaves revolute on the margins.2. [Rhododendron.] Flowers in axillary clusters; corolla saucer-shaped, with a short narrow tube and 10 pouches below the short limb, the anthers in the pouches in the bud: inflorescence-buds elongated, covered with loosely imbricated scales; leaves flat.3. [Kalmia.] Capsule loculicidal, the valves in opening bearing the partitions and separating from the persistent placentiferous axis; calyx-lobes valvate in the bud. Capsule ovoid-pyramidal; flowers in terminal panicles of secund racemes; anther-cells opening longitudinally from the apex to the middle; leaves deciduous.4. [Oxydendrum.] Capsule oblong; flowers in axillary fascicles; anthers opening below the apex by 2 oblong pores; leaves persistent.5. [Lyonia.] Fruit drupaceous; flowers in terminal panicles; anthers bearing a pair of reflexed awns on the back, each cell opening at apex anteriorally by a terminal pore; leaves persistent.6. [Arbutus.] Ovary inferior; fruit baccate; flowers axillary, racemose or solitary; anther-cells terminating in tubular appendages and opening by terminal pores.7. [Vaccinium.]
1. ELLIOTTIA Ell.
A glabrous tree or shrub, with slender terete branchlets, scaly buds, and fibrous roots. Leaves petiolate, oblong or oblong-obovate, acute at the ends or occasionally rounded at apex, entire, thin, dark green and glabrous above, pale and villose below, particularly on the thin yellow midrib and obscure forked veins; deciduous; petioles slender and flattened, with an abruptly enlarged base nearly covering the small axillary buds. Flowers perfect, on slender elongated pedicels, in erect terminal elongated racemose panicles, with minute acute scarious caducous bracts and bractlets; calyx short, tubular, puberulous, dark red-brown, 4-toothed, the broad apiculate teeth erose on the margins and imbricated in the bud; petals 4, imbricated in the bud, spatulate-linear, sessile; stamens 8, hypogynous, shorter than the petals, filaments broad, flattened; anthers oblong-ovoid, the cells callous-mucronate, free at the apex of the spreading lobes, opening from above downward; disk much thickened, fleshy; ovary sessile, subglobose, 4-lobed, 4-celled, concave at apex; style elongated, slender, gradually enlarged and club-shaped above and incurved at apex; stigma 3—5-lobed, smaller than the thickened end of the style; ovules numerous in each cell, attached on the inner angle of a tumid placenta, ascending, anatropous. Fruit unknown.
Elliottia with a single species is confined to the southern United States.
The genus is named in honor of Stephen Elliott (1771—1830), the distinguished botanist of South Carolina.
1. [Elliottia racemosa] Ell.
Leaves 3′—4′ long, 1′—1½′ wide; petioles ⅓′—½′ in length. Flowers about ½′ long, opening from the middle to the end of June, in clusters 7′—10′ in length.