There are several kinds of Cassiope, named for the mother of Andromeda, resembling Heather; the sepals four or five, without bracts at the base; the corolla bell-shaped, with four or five lobes; differing from Phyllodoce in capsule, form of corolla and filaments.
White Heather
Cassìope Mertensiàna
White
Summer
Northwest
This makes thick patches of many woody stems, a few inches high, the twigs thickly clothed with odd-looking, small, dark green leaves, overlapping like scales and ridged on the back. The single flowers are white and waxy, resembling the bells of Lily-of-the-valley, often with red calyxes and pedicels, and are pretty and delicate, set off by the stiff, dark foliage. This grows in the highest mountains, at an altitude of ten thousand feet and above.
WINTERGREEN FAMILY. Pyrolaceae.
A small family, natives of the northern hemisphere; low, generally evergreen, perennials, with branched rootstocks; leaves with leaf-stalks; flowers perfect, nearly regular, white or pink; calyx with four or five lobes; corolla with four or five lobes, or five petals; stamens twice as many as the divisions of the corolla; ovary superior, stigma more or less five-lobed; fruit a capsule, with many minute seeds.
Single Beauty
Monèses uniflòra
White
Summer
Northwest, etc.
The only kind, much like Chimaphila, a charming little perennial, with a single flower-stalk, from two to six inches tall, springing from a cluster of glossy, bright green leaves, with toothed edges, and bearing a single, lovely sweet-scented blossom, about three-quarters of an inch across, with usually five sepals and five, spreading, waxy-white petals; the long, straight style, with a five-lobed stigma, projecting from the ovary, which forms a green hump in the center of the flower, surrounded by eight or ten stamens. This little flower modestly turns its face down to the ground and we have to pick it to find how very pretty it is. It grows in wet, northern mountain woods, across the continent.
Single Beauty—Moneses uniflora.
White Heather—Cassiope Mertensiana.
There are a good many kinds of Pyrola; leaves mostly from the root; flowers usually nodding, in clusters, with bracted flower-stalks; sepals and petals five; stamens ten; capsule roundish, five-lobed, cobwebby on the edges. These plants are often called Shinleaf, because English peasants used the leaves for plasters. Pyrola is from the Latin for "pear," because of the resemblance of the leaves of some kinds. The aromatic Wintergreen, or Checker-berry, used for flavoring, is a Gaultheria, of the Heath Family.