42. Leucothoe D. Don, Edinburgh New Philos. J. 17: 159. 1834.
Hobblebush, sweetbells, dog-laurel, fetterbush, dog-hobble [Greek name for a princess of Babylon]
Gordon C. Tucker
Shrubs. Stems erect or spreading, glabrous or sparsely short-hairy, glabrescent; branches without silvery scales. Leaves persistent; blade oblong, lanceolate, oblanceolate, or elliptic, coriaceous, margins entire or spinulose-serrulate, plane, surfaces not glaucous, without silvery scales, glabrous or hairy abaxially; venation reticulodromous. Inflorescences axillary, fascicled or solitary racemes, (not leafy), 8-60-flowered, (produced on previous year’s wood); (bracteoles 2, medial or proximal, partly covering pedicel). Flowers: sepals 5, slightly connate, lanceolate-ovate to broadly ovate; petals 5, connate nearly their entire lengths, white, corolla cylindric to urceolate, lobes much shorter than tube; stamens 8(-10), included; filaments straight, flattened, glabrous or hairy, without spurs; anthers with or without 2 awns proximal to anther-filament junction, dehiscent through terminal pores; pistil 5-carpellate; ovary pseudo 10-locular; (style scarcely longer than stamens); stigma 5-lobed, capitate to peltate. Fruits capsular, subglobose, dry. Seeds ca. 60-120, ellipsoid, oblong, or angular, flattened or wedge-shaped; testa smooth and shiny, reticulate, or papillose. x = 11.
Species 5 (3 in the flora): e, w United States, e Asia.
SELECTED REFERENCES Ingram, J. W. 1961. Studies in the cultivated Ericaceae, I. Leucothoe. Baileya 9: 57-66. Ingram, J. W. 1979. Leucothoe revisited (Ericaceae). Baileya 20: 141-145. Melvin, N. C. 1981. Additional comments on Leucothoe (Ericaceae). Baileya 21: 127-130. Sleumer, H. 1959. Studien über die Gattung Leucothoe D. Don. Bot. Jahrb. Syst. 78: 435-480.
