Kalmia angustifolia L.

• Authority

  Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.

• Family

  Ericaceae

• Scientific Name

  Kalmia angustifolia L.

• Description

  Species Description - Branching shrub to 1 m; lvs firm, most of them ternate or opposite, short-petioled, elliptic or oblong, 3–5 cm, a fourth or half as wide, dull or somewhat bluish- green, glabrous or obscurely hairy above, paler and glabrous or with scattered stipitate glands beneath; fls several or many in short-peduncled, umbelliform or corymbiform racemes from the axils of last year’s lvs, on pedicels to 2 cm, these and the bracteoles and cal stipitate-glandular as well as finely puberulent; cor 6–12 mm wide, reddish-purple to deep pink; fr depressed-globose, 3–5 mm thick; 2n=24. Mostly in acid soils; Nf. and Lab. to Va., and inland to Mich. and s. Ont. May–July. The var. angustifolia, as principally described above, gives way at the s. to var. carolina (Small) Fernald, Carolina sheep-laurel, occurring at the margins of bogs and swamps on the coastal plain from se. Va. to S.C. and in the mts. from sw. Va. to Tenn. and n. Ga. Var. carolina is sometimes taller, to 1.5 m; lvs softly and permanently velvety-canescent beneath and with scattered stipitate glands; cal and bracteoles finely velvety-canescent, not glandular. Apr., May. (K. c.)

• Common Names

  sheep laurel