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Sheep Laurel. Lambkill

Kalmia angustifolia. Heath Family.

A shrub from one to three feet high. Leaves.--Narrowly oblong; light green. Flowers.--Deep pink; in lateral clusters. Calyx.--Five-parted. Corolla.--Five-lobed; between wheel-and bell-shaped; with stamens caught in its depressions as in the mountain laurel. Stamens.--Ten. Pistil.--One. This low shrub grows abundantly with the mountain laurel, bearing smaller deep pink flowers at the same season, and narrower, paler leaves. It is said to be the most poisonous of the genus, and to be especially deadly to sheep, while deer are supposed to feed upon its leaves with impunity. The flower is one of Thoreau's favorites. In his journal, June 13, 1852, he writes: "Lambkill is out. I remember with what delight I used to discover this flower in dewy mornings. All things in this world must be seen with the morning dew on them, must be seen with youthful, early opened, hopeful eyes." And two years later, oddly enough on the same day of the month, he finds them equally admirable at the approach of "dewy eve." "How beautiful the solid cylinders of the lamb-kill now just before sunset; small ten-sided rosy-crimson basins, about two inches above the recurved, drooping, dry capsules of last year, and sometimes those of the year before, two inches lower."