Lesson CCVIII

The Mountain Laurel

Leading thought—The laurel blossom is set with ten springs, and each spring acts as a sling in throwing pollen upon visiting insects, thus making sure that the visitor will carry pollen to other waiting flowers.

Method—Have the pupils bring to the schoolroom a branch of laurel which shows blossoms in all stages from the bud. Although this lesson is on the mountain laurel, any of the other species will do as well.

Observations—1. How are the laurel leaves set about the blossom clusters to make them beautiful? What is the shape of the laurel leaf? What are its colors above and below? How do the leaves grow with reference to the flowers? Do they grow on last year’s or this year’s wood? How can you tell the new wood from the old?

2. Take a blossom bud. What is its shape? How many sides to the pyramid-like tip? How many little flaring ridges at the base of the pyramid? Describe the calyx.

3. What is the shape of the flower when open? How many lobes has it? What is its color? Where is it marked with red?

4. In the open blossom, what do you see of the ten ridges, or keels, which you noticed in the bud? How does each one of these grooves end? What does the laurel blossom keep in these ten pockets? Touch one of the ten filaments with a pencil and note what happens.

5. Take a bud scarcely open. Where are the stamens? Can you see the anthers? Take a blossom somewhat more open. Where are the anthers now? From these observations explain how the stamens place their anthers in the pockets. How do the filaments grow into bent springs?

6. Are the anthers open when they are still in the pocket? Look at an anther with a lens and tell how many slits it has. How do they open? Are the pollen grains loose when they are thrown from the anther? How are they fastened together? Does this pollen mass stick to whatever it touches?

7. What is the use to the flower of this arrangement for throwing pollen? What insects set free the stamen-springs? Where is the nectar which the bee or moth is after? Can it get this nectar without setting free the springs? Touch the filaments with a pencil and see how far they will sling the pollen.

8. Describe the pistil in the open flower. Is the stigma near the anthers? Would they be likely to throw their pollen on the stigma of their own flower? Could they throw it on the stigmas of neighboring flowers?

9. How does the fruit of the laurel look? Does the style still cling after the corolla falls? Describe the fruit-capsule. How does it open? How do the seeds look? Are there many of them?

10. Where does the mountain laurel grow? What kind of soil does it like? Do you know any other species of laurel? If so, are they found in the same situations as the mountain laurel?

“A childish gladness stays my feet,
As through the winter woods I go,
Behind some frozen ledge to meet
A kalmia shining through the snow.

I see it, beauteous as it stood
Ere autumn’s glories paled and fled,
And sigh no more in pensive mood,
‘My leafy oreads are all dead.’

I hear its foliage move, like bells
On rosaries strung, and listening there,
Forget the icy wind that tells
Of turfless fields, and forests bare.

All gently with th’ inclement scene
I feel its glossy verdure blend;⁠—
I bless that lovely evergreen
As heart in exile hails a friend.

Its boughs, by tempest scarcely stirred,
Are tents beneath whose emerald fold
The rabbit and the snowbound bird
Forget the world is white and cold.

And still, ’mid ruin undestroyed,
Queen arbor with the fadeless crown,
Its brightness warms the frosty void,
And softens winter’s surliest frown.”

—From “The Mountain Laurel,” Theron Brown.