The beautiful, low-growing STAGGERBUSH (Pieris Mariana) has its small, cylindric, five-parted, white or pink-tinted flowers clustered at intervals along one side of the upright, nearly leafless, smooth, dark-dotted branches of the preceding year. When the glossy oval leaves, black dotted beneath, are freshly put forth in early summer - for the shrub is not strictly an evergreen, however late the old leaves may cling - it is said that stupid sheep and calves, which find them irresistibly attractive, stagger about from their poisonous effect just as they do after feeding on this shrub's relative the Lambkill (q.v.). In sandy soil from southern New England to Florida, rarely far inland, one finds the staggerbush in bloom from May to July. On the dry plains of Long Island, where it is common indeed, it appears a not unworthy relative of the FETTERBUSH (Pieris fioribunda), that exquisite little evergreen with quantities of small white urns drooping along its twigs, which nurserymen acquire from the mountains of our Southern States to adorn garden shrubbery at home and abroad. Mr. William Robinson, in his delightful book, "The English Flower Garden" (a book, by the way, that Rudyard Kipling reads as the Puritan read his Bible), counts this fetterbush among the "indispensables."
Much taller than the preceding dwarfs is the COMMON PRIVET ANDROMEDA found in swamps and low ground from New England to the Gulf and in the southwest (Xolisma ligustrina). Whoever has seen the privet almost universally grown in hedges is familiar with the general aspect of this much-branched shrub. Most farmers' boys know the Andromeda's mock May-apple, a hollow, stringy growth of insect origin, which they are not likely to confuse with the pulpy, juicy apple found on the closely related azaleas (q.v.). Abundant terminal spike-like or branched clusters of white, globular, four or five parted flowers in close array, attract quantities of bees from the end of May to early July, notwithstanding each individual flower measures barely an eighth of an inch across. We have seen the fine hair-triggers which other members of this same family, the beautiful pink laurels (q.v.), have set to be sprung by an incoming visitor. Now this Andromeda, and similarly several of its immediate kin, have a quite different, but equally effective, method of throwing pollen on its friends who come to call. When one of the little banded bees clings, as he must, to the tiny flower scarce half his size, thrusting his tongue obliquely through the globe's narrow opening to reach the nectar, suddenly a shower of pollen is inhospitably thrown upon him from within. In probing between the ring of anthers (that are pressed against the style by the S-shaped curvature of the filaments so as to retain the pollen), he needs must displace some of them and release the vitalizing dust through the large terminal pores in the anther-sacs. Is he discouraged by such rough treatment? Not at all. Off he flies to another Andromeda blossom, and leaves some of the dust with which he is powdered on the sticky stigma that impedes his entrance, before precipitating a fresh shower as he sips another reward. The straight column-like pistil, stigmatic on its tip only, allows the flower's own pollen to slide harmlessly down its sides. How exquisite are the most minute adjustments of floral mechanism! Is it possible for one to remain an agnostic after the evidences even the flowers show us of infinite wisdom and love?
Another denizen of swamps and low ground, next of kin to the trailing arbutus, is the LEATHERLEAF, or DWARF CASSANDRA (Chamaedaphne calyculata), a modest little shrub, its stiff, slender branches plentifully set with thick oblong leaves that grow gradually smaller the higher they go, and when young are densely covered with minute scurfy scales. Sometimes before the snow has melted in April, the leafy terminal shoots are hung with multitudes of little waxy-white, cylindric, typical heath flowers only about a quarter of an inch long, each nodding from a leaf axil, and the whole forming one-sided racemes. But as the shrub ranges from Newfoundland to Georgia, and westward to Illinois, British Columbia, and Alaska, some people find it blooming even in July. Mythological names were evidently in high favor among the botanists who labeled the genuses comprising the heath family: Phyllodoce, the sea-nymph; Cassiope, mother of Andromeda; Leucothoe; Andromeda herself; Pieris, a name sometimes applied to the Muses from their supposed abode at Pieria, Thessaly; and Cassandra, daughter of Priam, the prophetess who was shut up in a mad-house because she prophesied the ruin of Troy - these names are as familiar to the student of this group of shrubs today as they were to the devout Greeks in the brave days of old.
CREEPING WINTERGREEN; CHECKERBERRY; PARTRIDGE-BERRY; MOUNTAIN
TEA; GROUND TEA; DEER, BOX, or SPICE BERRY
(Gaultheria procumbens) Heath family
Flowers - White, small, usually solitary, nodding from a leaf axil. Corolla rounded bell-shape, 5-toothed; calyx 5-parted, persistent; 10 included stamens, their anther-sacs opening by a pore at the top. Stem: Creeping above or below ground, its branches 2 to 6 in. high. Leaves: Mostly clustered at top of branches; alternate, glossy, leathery, evergreen, much darker above than underneath, oval to oblong, very finely saw-edged; the entire plant aromatic. Fruit: Bright red, mealy, spicy, berry-like; ripe in October. Preferred Habitat - Cool woods, especially under evergreens. Flowering Season - June-September. Distribution - Newfoundland to Georgia, westward to Michigan and Manitoba.
However truly the poets may make us feel the spirit of Nature in their verse, can many be trusted when it comes to the letter of natural science? "Where camels arch their cool, dark boughs o'er beds of wintergreen," wrote Bryant; yet it is safe to say that nine colonies of this hardy little plant out of every ten he saw were under evergreen trees, not dogwoods. When the July sun melts the fragrance out of the pines high overhead, and the dim, cool forest aisles are more fragrant with commingled incense from a hundred natural censers than any stone cathedral's, the wintergreen's little waxy bells hang among the glossy leaves that form their aromatic carpet. On such a day, in such a resting place, how one thrills with the consciousness that it is good to be alive!
Omnivorous children who are addicted to birch-chewing, prefer these tender yellow-green leaves tinged with red, when newly put forth in June - "Youngsters" rural New Englanders call them then. In some sections a kind of tea is steeped from the leaves, which also furnish the old-fashioned embrocation, wintergreen oil. Late in the year the glossy bronze carpet of old leaves dotted over with vivid red "berries" invites much trampling by hungry birds and beasts, especially deer and bears, not to mention well-fed humans. Coveys of Bob Whites and packs of grouse will plunge beneath the snow for fare so delicious as this spicy, mealy fruit that hangs on the plant till spring, of course for the benefit of just such colonizing agents as they. Quite a different species, belonging to another family, bears the true Partridgeberry, albeit the wintergreen shares with it a number of popular names. In a strict sense neither of these plants produces a berry; for the fruit of the true partridge[berry] vine (Mitchella repens) is a double drupe, or stone bearer, each half containing four hard, seed-like nutlets; while the wintergreen's so called berry is merely the calyx grown thick, fleshy, and gaily colored - only a coating for the five-celled ovary that contains the minute seeds. Little baskets of wintergreen berries bring none too high prices in the fancy fruit and grocery shops when we calculate how many charming plants such unnatural use of them sacrifices.
Closely allied to the wintergreen is the RED BEARBERRY, KINNIKINIC, BEAR'S GRAPE, FOXBERRY or MEALBERRY, as it is variously called (Arctostaphylos-uva-ursi = bearberry). Trailing its spreading branches over sandy ground, rocky hillsides and steeps until it sometimes forms luxuriant mats, it closely resembles its cousin the arbutus in its manner of growth, and has been mistaken for it by at least one poet. But its tiny, rounded, urn-shaped flowers, which come in May and June, are white, not salver form and pink; the entire plant is not rusty-hairy; the dark little leathery evergreen leaves are spatulate, and, moreover, it bears small but abundant clusters of round, berry-like fruit, an attainment the arbutus still struggles for, but cannot yet reach. Bumblebees are the flower's chief benefactors. Game fowl, especially grouse, but many other birds too, and various animals which are glad to add the clusters of smooth red bearberries to their scanty winter menu, however insipid and dry they may be, have distributed the seed from Labrador across Arctic America to Alaska, southward to Pennsylvania, Illinois, Nebraska, and California. How plants do compel insects, birds, and beasts to work for them! The entire plant is astringent, and has been used in medicine; also by leather dressers.
BLACK or HIGH-BUSH HUCKLEBERRY; WHORTLEBERRY [now TALL
HUCKLEBERRY]
(Gaylussacia resinosa) Huckleberry family
Flowers - White and pink, pale or deep, small, cylindric, bell-shaped. 5-parted, borne in 1-sided racemes from the sides of the stiff, grayish branches. Stem: A shrub to 3 ft. high. Leaves: Alternate, oval to oblong, firm, entire edged, green on both sides, dotted underneath with resinous spots, especially when young. Fruit: A round, black, bloomless, sweet, berry-like drupe, containing 10 seed-like nutlets, in each of which is a solitary seed. Ripe, July-August. Preferred Habitat - Moist, sandy soil, thickets, open woods. Flowering Season - May-June. Distribution - Newfoundland to Georgia, west to Manitoba and Kentucky.