Excerpt from The Garden, Vol. 22: An Illustrated Weekly Journal of Horticulture in All Its Branches; Christmas, 1882

The mountain Laurel of the American States (kalmia latifolia) is one of those plants which, if of recent introduction, would be eagerly sought after; but having been an inhabitant of our gardens for nearly a century and a half, it receives but little attention. When in robust health, as one often finds it among the Surrey hills, its dark glossy evergreen foliage alone stamps it as a plant of the highest merit, but when in flower in June and July its true value becomes apparent, and it remains strikingly showy even after the beauty of the Azaleas and Rhododendrons is over. When raised from seed, as it often is in quantities, the individual plants vary a good deal both in size and colouring, and also in the profusion in which the flowers are produced; thus amongst seedlings the produce of one plant may sometimes be found greatly superior to that of another, and these, when once obtained, if propagated by grafting on the com mon type become fixed. A well - marked variety is the kind called mytifolia, which, as its name indicates, has leaves much smaller than those of latifolia, and the growth is also less vigorous. The flowers, too, are smaller; indeed, the whole plant may be described as a miniature form of latifolia.

Of a totally different character is Kalmia angustifolia, a small upright shrub 2 ft. To 3 ft. In height and earlier in flowering than the others just named. Its leaves are generally about I; in. Long and in. Broad, but they vary somewhat in size as well as in colour, some being deep green, others of a pale hue, while a glaucous form is also sometimes met with. Its flowers are, as a rule, deeper in colour than those of K. Latifolia, while some of the selected kinds known under the names of rubra and superba are deeper still. There is also a very dwarf variety called nana, which seldom grows more than 1 ft. In height, and another in which the leaves are edged with creamy-white, but not worth grow ing. In K. Angustifolia ovata the leaves are broader and the plant more vigorous than in the common type, while the very glossy foliage of a kind called lucida renders it worth growing for the sake of variety.

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