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Marsh Andromeda

Andromeda polifolia. Heath Family.

An evergreen shrub from six to eighteen inches high. Leaves.--Thick; long and narrow; smooth; with rolled edges; dark green above, white beneath. Flowers.--White or pinkish; crowded in drooping clusters at the ends of the branches. Calyx.--Of five sepals. Corolla.--Five-toothed, urn-shaped. Stamens.--Ten. Pistil.--One.

This pretty evergreen is found in boggy places from Pennsylvania and New Jersey northward, flowering in June. It was named Andromeda by Linnaeus because he found it "always fixed on some little turfy hillock in the midst of the swamps, as Andromeda herself was chained to a rock in the sea." Before expansion the flowers are usually bright red.