Appearance
''Kalmia polifolia'' flowers in April and is pollinated by bees. Bees, however, after pollinating this plant, produce a poison honey. Its seeds ripen in September. These seeds are five-parted, round, and woody.''Kalmia polifolia'' can grow to be two feet tall. Its leaves are arranged oppositely upon its branch and grow to be an inch to an inch and a half in length and tend to be waxy with an entire and revolute margin. Below each leaf base there are ridges, where it appears as though a part of the leaf is curled around the circumference of the stem. This is especially noticeable lower on the plant.
The base of the petiole is pressed against the stem as its flowers cluster in a single terminal bunch, which appears to be pink or purple in colour; the near cup-shaped flower spans about three-eighths of an inch in diameter.
Naming
The genus 'Kalmia' is named after Pehr Kalm, a Swedish-Finn botantist, who was a student of Linnaeus. The species name, 'polifolia', is Latin for 'pole-leaves' or 'pole-petals'.The former species name, 'glauca', is Latin for gleaming or gray, a word ultimately dervived from the Ancient Greek 'γλαυκός', meaning blue-green or blue-gray.
Habitat
''Kalmia polifolia'' is common throughout Northern North American, thriving along the Eastern American states and in Montana, as well as in every Canadian province except in British Columbia, although spottings have been reported of ''Kalmia polifolia'' at Rhododenron Lake, located near Vancouver Island. Within Canada, ''Kalmia polifolia'' is very commonly found in east Nova Scotia where bog conditions are more frequent. ''Kalmia polifolia'' has also been spotted in a bog in Surrey, England.Food
While caribou do not have specialized food habits, they can eat most plants - preferring fungi, green leaves of deciduous shrubs, and new spring growth of sedges. They often eat ''Kalmia polifolia'' in the spring and summer; the plant comprises 11% of their dietary dry-matter protein.Evolution
The plant was first described by Friedrich Adam Julius von Wangenheim, a German botantist.References:
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