Epigaea repens
English name(s):
trailing arbutus, mayflower
Family: Ericaceae
Description:
Wonderfully fragrant white to light pink flowers bloom during the spring months of April and May amongst its leathery textured, alternate leaves which are borne along its ground-creeping and hairy stems.
Habitat:
very acidic soils in sandy or rocky woods
Notes:
epi = on + gaia = the earth
Additional notes:
photograph taken in 1994 by Mary Jane Rowe who valued our natural world especially wildflowers and shared with our society courtesy of Robert A. Rowe
photograph taken in 1994 by Mary Jane Rowe who valued our natural world especially wildflowers and shared with our society courtesy of Robert A. Rowe
field trip archive: Thompson Ledges 2010
state of Ohio: county distribution map
Plant identification
personal herbarium:
Ashtabula County, 28 April 1916, collector: Price Alonso Elwood voucher specimen and label
shared with our society courtesy of Robert A. Rowe
Newcomb's: Key Group no. 532, p. 198 (treated as a wildflower despite woody stems)
Historical description:
researching
USDA-NRCS PLANTS Database / Britton, N.L., and A. Brown. 1913. An illustrated flora of the northern United States, Canada and the British Possessions. 3 vols. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York. Vol. 2: 692.
May-Flower
Pink, small,
and punctual,
Aromatic, low,
Covert in April,
Candid in May,
Dear to the moss,
Known by the knoll,
Next to the robin
In every human soul.
Bold little beauty,
Bedecked with thee,
Nature forswears
Antiquity.
Emily Dickenson
virtual herbarium sheet 000001 created by Lisa K. SchlaG, 2.ii.2014;edits:27.ii.2016
