Kalmia buxifolia
Credits
Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles
Recommended citation
'Kalmia buxifolia' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.
Common Names
- Sand Myrtle
Synonyms
- Ledum buxifolium P.J.Bergius
- Ledum thymifolium Lam.
- Leiophyllum thymifolium Steud.
- Ledum serpyllifolium L'Hér. ex DC.
- Leiophyllum buxifolium (P.J.Bergius) Elliott
- Leiophyllum buxifolium var. hugeri (Small) Schneid.
- Dendrium hugeri Small
- Leiophyllum buxifolium var. prostratum (Loud.) A.Gray
- Ammyrsine prostrata Loud.
Editorial Note
Bean treated this species under the synonym Leiophyllum buxifolium, recognising three – as he admitted, rather indistinct – botanical varieties not currently accepted (POWO 8/4/2025), and for which combinations in Kalmia have not been made.
A small evergreen shrub variable habit in the wild, being erect and up to 3 ft high, or prostrate or decumbent, according to situation and altitude; usually seen in cultivation as a dense bush up to 11⁄2 ft high. Leaves alternate or opposite, oblong, oval, ovate to almost orbicular, 3⁄16 to 1⁄2 in. long, 1⁄16 to 3⁄16 in. wide (occasionally wider), glabrous, glossy, dark green, very shortly stalked. Flowers rosy in the bud, opening in May and June, in crowded terminal clusters 3⁄4 to 1 in. across, each flower 1⁄4 in. in diameter. Petals five, white tipped with pink, oval, spreading almost to the full extent; sepals narrow lance-shaped, about half as long as the petals. Stamens ten, spreading, on slender filaments; anthers reddish brown, opening down the side. Flower-stalks slender, glabrous or clad with stalked glands intermixed with short down. Seed-vessel a two- to five-celled capsule, many-seeded.
Formerly placed in the monotypic genus Leiophyllum, this species is native to eastern North America from New Jersey southward, westward into the mountains of the Carolinas, Tennessee, and E. Kentucky. It resembles Ledum and, as in that genus, the petals are quite free, but is easily distinguishable from any species of that genus by the small, quite glabrous, short-stalked to almost sessile leaves. The capsules open from the top downward (the reverse in Ledum) and the pollen escapes from a slit running the whole length of each anther (in Ledum it is released through a small aperture).
[What Bean recognised] as the typical variety (Leiophyllum buxifolium var. buxifolium) is mainly confined to the pine-barrens of the coastal plain of New Jersey, but is recorded from farther south. It has mostly alternate leaves about 1⁄4 in. long, occasionally longer, and glabrous or finely downy (not glandular) flower-stalks. The other two varieties both have glandular flower-stalks and more southerly distributions. Var. hugeri (syn. Dendrium hugeri Small) has its main distribution in the coastal plain, extending west into the mountains (though it does co-occur in New Jersey with the typical variety). The type of Dendrium hugeri Small came from the high mountains of the Carolinas and seems to have been near to the var. prostratum, but with alternate, not opposite leaves. Var. prostratum (syn. Ammyrsine prostrata Loud) appears to be confined to the mountains of the south-eastern states and is variable in habit, being erect or prostrate according to situation (despite its name). It is distinguished by the larger and mostly opposite leaves (leaves are 5⁄16 to 1⁄2 in. long, 1⁄6 to almost 1⁄4 in. wide). (Other characters have been used to distinguish the varieties, but they do not hold good constantly.)
The plant figured in Bot. Mag., t. 6752 (1884), appears to belong to var. prostrata, judging from the specimen preserved in the Kew Herbarium, and not to var. hugeri, as Rehder states in the Manual. L. buxifolium was introduced by Peter Collinson in 1736, though in which variety is not known. The plants now cultivated probably all belong to the var. hugeri or prostratum, but it is doubtful whether there is any point in recognising these varietal names in gardens. As normally seen, K. buxifolia is a charming little shrub of neat aspect, and is at its prettiest just before the flowers expand, when the buds are very rosy. It blossoms very freely, the flowers almost hiding the foliage. The best method of propagating it is by cuttings made of shoots 1 to 11⁄2 in. long in July or August, dibbled in sandy peat, and placed in gentle bottom heat; they should be covered with a bell-glass until rooted.
