Fig. 60.—Flowers, anthers, and pistil of Menziesia.
Loiseleuria, or Azalea procumbens, is a small plant, having the appearance of thyme, which is the only species left in the genus Azalea by those botanists who include the true Azaleas in the genus Rhododendron.
Ledum is the last genus belonging to this tribe that I shall attempt to describe. Ledum palustre, or wild Rosemary, the best-known species, has a corolla in five regular petals, and ten stamens which project beyond it; but L. latifolium, the Labrador Tea, has only five stamens, which are not longer than the petals. L. buxifolium, a little thyme-like shrub, is now called Leiophyllum thymifolium. All the species have white flowers.
TRIBE III.—VACCINIEÆ.
Fig. 61.—Common Bilberry (Vaccinium tenellum).The plants comprised in this tribe, which is considered a separate order by many botanists, all agree with the genus Vaccinium in having the ovary entirely surrounded by the calyx, which forms a fleshy berry-like fruit when ripe, and in the seeds being scaly. Vaccinium Myrtillus, the common Bilberry or Blaeberry, is a familiar example of the genus; and fig. 61 shows the shape of the flowers at a, the manner in which the ovary is enveloped in the calyx at b, and the curious shape of the anthers in the magnified representation of them at c. The berry is five-celled and many-seeded; and there are eight or ten stamens. Both the anthers and the flower vary in the different species, but the calyx and the manner in which it surrounds the ovary are nearly the same in all, as may be seen in fig. 62, which represents a specimen of V. tenellum, the Pennsylvanian Whortle-berry. In this figure a is the flower, b the anther, and c the ovary surrounded by the calyx.
