Kalmia angustifolia

Kalmia angustifolia
Sheep-laurel
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Plantae
(unranked): Angiosperms
(unranked): Eudicots
(unranked): Asterids
Order: Ericales
Family: Ericaceae
Genus: Kalmia
Species: K. angustifolia
Binomial name
Kalmia angustifolia
L.

Kalmia angustifolia (Sheep-laurel) is a flowering plant in the family Ericaceae, which is often used like an ornamental plant. It has attractive small, deep crimson-pink flowers that occur early summer. The low shrub, a native plant of North America, may be only six inches high, or it may attain three feet. The narrow evergreen leaves, pale on the underside, have a tendency to form groups of threes, standing upright when newly put forth, but bent downward with the weight of age. A peculiarity of the plant is that clusters of leaves usually terminate the woody stem, for the flowers grow in whorls or in clusters at the side of it below.

It is also known as Lamb-kill, Wicky, Calf-kill, Sheep-poison, Narrow-leaved Laurel and Sheep Laurel, its folk-names testifying chiefly to the plant's toxicity in pasture.

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