SHEEPLAUREL, LAMBKILL, WICKY, CALFKILL, SHEEPPOISON
NARROW-LEAVED LAUREL (K. angustifolia), and so on through a list
of folk names testifying chiefly to the plant's wickedness in the
pasture, may be especially deadly food for cattle, but it
certainly is a feast to the eyes. However much we may admire
the
small, deep crimson-pink flowers that we find in June and July in
moist fields or swampy ground or on the hillsides, few of us will
agree with Thoreau, who claimed that it is "handsomer than the
mountain laurel." The low shrub may be only six inches high, or
it may attain three feet. The narrow evergreen leaves, pale on
the underside, have a tendency to form groups of threes, standing
upright when newly put forth, but bent downward with the weight
of age. A peculiarity of the plant is that clusters of leaves
usually terminate the woody stem, for the flowers grow in whorls
or in clusters at the side of it below.
The PALE or SWAMP LAUREL (K. glauca), found in cool bogs from
Newfoundland to New Jersey and Michigan, and westward to the
Pacific Coast, coats the under side of its mostly upright leaves
with a smooth whitish bloom like the cabbage's. It is a
straggling little bush, even lower than the lamb-kill, and an
earlier bloomer, putting forth its loose, niggardly clusters of
deep rose or lilac-colored flowers in June.
Previous: BROADLEAVED KALMIA
Next: TRAILING ARBUTUS MAYFLOWER GROUND LAUREL
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