Kalmia angustifolia

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Plant Characteristics
Cultivation
Scientific Names

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Read about Kalmia angustifolia in the Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture 

Kalmia angustifolia, linn. sheep-laurel. lambkill. wicky. Shrub, to 3 ft.: lvs. petioled, usually oblong, obtuse, light green above, pale beneath, 1-2 ½ in. long: corymb lateral, many-fld., compound or simple; fls. 1 1/3— ½ in. across, purple or crimson; sepals ovate, glandular. June, July. From Newfoundland and Hudson Bay to Ga. B.M. 331. BM. 445.—There are varieties with light purple fls., var. rosea, Hort.; with crimson fls., var. robra, Lodd. (var. hirsuta, voss). L.B.C. 6:502; with white fls., var. Candida, Fern.; with ovate or oval lvs., var. ovata, Pursh, and of dwarf habit, var. pumila, Bosse (var. nana, Hort.).


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Sheep-laurel
Plant Info
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Plantae
Division: Magnoliophyta
Class: Magnoliopsida
Order: Ericales
Family: Ericaceae
Genus: Kalmia
Species: K. angustifolia

Binomial name
Kalmia angustifolia
L.

Kalmia angustifolia (Sheep-laurel) is a flowering plant in the family Ericaceae, which is often used like an ornamental plant. It has attractive small, deep crimson-pink flowers that occur early summer. 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.

It is also known as Lamb-kill, Wicky, Calf-kill, Sheep-poison, Narrow-leaved Laurel and Sheep Laurel, its folk-names testifying chiefly to the plant's toxicity in pasture.

References

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