Azalea

Azalea, a genus including about twenty shrubs belonging to the heath tribe, natives of North America and Asia, largely cultivated for their fragrant flowers. Their leaves are fringed with hairs, have a glandular point and are deciduous: the flowers are in umbellate clusters, are glutinous outside and have five united sepals, a funnel-shaped corolla of five spreading petals, five long stamens with anthers opening by pores, and a five-chambered ovary with many ovules and a single style. A. pontica of Asia Minor produces the narcotic honey eaten by Xenophon's army.