olena
<font color=green>Emerald Angel<br><font color=mag
- Joined
- May 12, 2001
State Flower
Mountain Laurel
Kalmia latifolia
Description Evergreen, many-stemmed, thicket-forming shrub or sometimes a small tree with short, crooked trunk; stout, spreading branches; a compact, rounded crown; and beautiful, large, pink flower clusters.
Height: 20' (6 m).
Diameter: 6" (15 cm).
Leaves: evergreen; alternate or sometimes opposite or in 3's; 2 1/2-4" (6-10 cm) long, 1-1 1/2" (2.5-4 cm) wide. Narrowly elliptical or lance-shaped; hard whitish point at tip; without teeth; thick and stiff. Dull dark green above, yellow-green beneath.
Bark: dark reddish-brown; thin, fissured into long narrow ridges and shredding.
Twigs: reddish-green with sticky hairs when young; later turning reddish-brown, peeling, and exposing darker layer beneath.
Flowers: 3/4-1" (2-2.5 cm) wide; saucer-shaped, with 5-lobed pink or white corolla with purple lines, from pointed deep pink buds; on long stalks covered with sticky hairs; in upright branched flat clusters 4-5" (10-13 cm) wide; in spring.
Fruit: 1/4" (6 mm) wide; a rounded dark brown capsule; with long threadlike style at tip; covered with sticky hairs; 5-celled, splitting open along 5 lines; many tiny seeds; maturing in autumn and remaining attached.
Habitat Dry or moist acid soils; in understory of mixed forests on upland mountain slopes and in valleys; also in shrub thickets called "heath balds" or "laurel slicks."
Range SE. Maine south to N. Florida, west to Louisiana, and north to Indiana; to 4000' (1219 m), higher in southern Appalachians.
Discussion Mountain Laurel is one of the most beautiful native flowering shrubs and is well displayed as an ornamental in many parks. The stamens of the flowers have an odd, springlike mechanism which spreads pollen when tripped by a bee. The wood has been used for tool handles and turnery, and the burls, or hard knotlike growths, for briar tobacco pipes. Linnaeus named this genus for his student Peter Kalm (1716-79), a Swedish botanist who traveled in Canada and the eastern United States.
Mountain Laurel
Kalmia latifolia
Description Evergreen, many-stemmed, thicket-forming shrub or sometimes a small tree with short, crooked trunk; stout, spreading branches; a compact, rounded crown; and beautiful, large, pink flower clusters.
Height: 20' (6 m).
Diameter: 6" (15 cm).
Leaves: evergreen; alternate or sometimes opposite or in 3's; 2 1/2-4" (6-10 cm) long, 1-1 1/2" (2.5-4 cm) wide. Narrowly elliptical or lance-shaped; hard whitish point at tip; without teeth; thick and stiff. Dull dark green above, yellow-green beneath.
Bark: dark reddish-brown; thin, fissured into long narrow ridges and shredding.
Twigs: reddish-green with sticky hairs when young; later turning reddish-brown, peeling, and exposing darker layer beneath.
Flowers: 3/4-1" (2-2.5 cm) wide; saucer-shaped, with 5-lobed pink or white corolla with purple lines, from pointed deep pink buds; on long stalks covered with sticky hairs; in upright branched flat clusters 4-5" (10-13 cm) wide; in spring.
Fruit: 1/4" (6 mm) wide; a rounded dark brown capsule; with long threadlike style at tip; covered with sticky hairs; 5-celled, splitting open along 5 lines; many tiny seeds; maturing in autumn and remaining attached.
Habitat Dry or moist acid soils; in understory of mixed forests on upland mountain slopes and in valleys; also in shrub thickets called "heath balds" or "laurel slicks."
Range SE. Maine south to N. Florida, west to Louisiana, and north to Indiana; to 4000' (1219 m), higher in southern Appalachians.
Discussion Mountain Laurel is one of the most beautiful native flowering shrubs and is well displayed as an ornamental in many parks. The stamens of the flowers have an odd, springlike mechanism which spreads pollen when tripped by a bee. The wood has been used for tool handles and turnery, and the burls, or hard knotlike growths, for briar tobacco pipes. Linnaeus named this genus for his student Peter Kalm (1716-79), a Swedish botanist who traveled in Canada and the eastern United States.