A much-branched shrub with stiff branches, 3 to 15 feet high, often forming dense thickets. In the south it sometimes attains the size of a small tree. Leaves smooth, oval or elliptic to ovate-lanceolate, pointed at both ends, on short petioles, green on both sides, usually paler beneath, thick and evergreen, 2 to 5 inches long, one-half to 11/2 inches wide. Flowers three-fourths to 1 inch broad, pink or white, numerous and showy in terminal clusters; pedicels of the flowers densely sticky-glandular and two-bracteolate at the base, slender, one-half to 11/2 inches long; both the calyx and the corolla sticky-glandular without, the corolla similar in structure to that of Kalraia angustifolia, which is typical of all members of the genus Kalmia. Fruit capsule globular and indented at the top, five-lobed, one-sixth to one-fourth of an inch thick.
In rocky and sandy woods, thickets and recently cleared land, New Brunswick to Ontario and Indiana, south to Florida, Kentucky and Louisiana. Flowering in May and June. Known also as Spoonwood, Broad-leaved Ivy and Clamoun.
Memoir 15 N. Y. State Museum
A. Mountain Laurel; Calico Bush - Kalmia latifolia