Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-07-24
LAUREL ON OUR HILLS.

Great Clusters OF Its Beautiful Flowers
Adorn the Ravines About Pitssburg-
The Rhododsndron Is Also Abundant
What q Century in Europ. Did for 1t.
WRITTEN FOR THE DrsPATcH.l
One may gather their own laurels any of
these fine days by drive up the mountain
side or along some of our rivers and cool
ravines, where the struggling bush seems al
most oppressed with its wealth of superb
flowers set in great clusters among the grace
full, shining leaves The flowers vary in
color from pink to pure white, and the bell
shaped cups are so exquisitely crimped they
remind us somehow of the sheer white caps
old ladies used to wear Like most flowers,
this one has one curious feature; inside are
ten little cradles, in each of which an anther
lies snug abed. But take pin and gently
touch the stamen-pop! up flies the anther
like Jack-in-the-pulpit,o only it IS not so
ugly. Now, if you are a young Darwin,
you will find out what all this is for-and if
you are not, there is no use In telling you.
But this American laurel is not the
noble laurel with which the Romans
crowned their heroes and poets; that is a
large tree and grows in Italy. 1t is related
to our sasssfras and to the cinnamon tree,
and like them it is sweet scented and spicy,
and when we are told that laurel leaves
make delicious favoring for pudding we
must remember that it is this noble laurel,
or bay tree, that is meant, not our native
shrub, for its leaves contain q deadly
poiosn and we must be careful how we
handle it. Sheep often die from eating the
leaves, which gives it the name OF lamb
kill. Another name is spoonwood, for in
early times the fine grained wood was made
into spoons But long ago, before the
plants Of this country had been examined
and named, the King of Sweden sent man
named Kahn over here to study the new
planta There were settlements of Swedes
along the Delaware and Schuvlkill rivels
before Penn came to found Philadelphia
and give his name to the State that now
men Kahn made his home while exploring
the region and gathering plants
He took home to Linnaeus. the father of
botany, many specimens of American plants
till then unknown to naturalists, and the
delight of the old botanist over these new
found treasures was said to be SO great it
cured him of his gout. After studying over
these plants he gave them names, and the
most beautiful one of all he named for
Kahn, so the true name of our laurel is
KaImia
Before the laurel has quite faded out OF
sight another splendid blossom has opened
in the woods beside it; this is the rhodo-
dendron, which is sometimes called the
"great laurel" 1t has clusters of large
white flowers, elegantly shaded and spotted
with greenish yellow, and its leaves are
nearly foot long, thick as leather and
beautifully waxed and polished.
This is the origin of many of the handsome
shrubs of this name now sold from the nur-
series. The shrub was carried from our
mountains to Europe and after a century Of
culture comes back to US as a gorgeous ex-
otic. Those of us who can't have 100 years
of Europe, many at least live one happy
day on the Alleghenies while Laurel Ridge
proolaims itself by the great banks of rosy
bloom piled on the rocks and drifting all
down the mountain side.
MARGARET E HOUSTON.