There are two species of Gaultheria common in British gardens: viz.—G. procumbens and G. Shallon: both of which have flowers resembling those of the Arbutus and furnished with bracts; but in the former species the flowers are solitary and produced from the axils of the leaves, and in the latter they are in racemes, of the kind called secund, that is with the flowers growing all on one side. The berries of both kinds are eatable, and those of G. procumbens are called Partridge berries in America, and the leaves Mountain tea. Both species have ten stamens, the anthers of which are two-cleft, each cell being furnished with two horns, as in Zenobia speciosa (see fig. 54, in page 116). The fruit is five-celled and the seeds are numerous.
The genus Clethra differs considerably from the preceding genera, as the limb of the corolla
Fig. 56.—Flower of Clethra Alnifolia. is so large and so deeply cleft, as to make the flower appear to have five petals (see a in fig. 56). There are ten stamens, with broad arrow-shaped anthers (b), and a three-cleft stigma, (c). The capsule is dry, with three many-seeded cells. In C. alnifolia, a native of North America, (of which fig. 56 represents a magnified flower,) the flowers are erect, and produced in a spicate raceme; but in C. arborea, a native of Madeira, the racemes are panicled, and the flowers drooping and somewhat bell-shaped. Both species are very ornamental.
TRIBE II.—RHODOREÆ.
The plants included in this tribe are all considered to bear more or less resemblance to the Rhododendron, though in some of them the family likeness is not very strong; and the genera I shall describe to illustrate it are Rhododendron, Azalea, and Rhodora (the last two being by some botanists included in Rhododendron); Kalmia, Menziesia, and Ledum.
