Kalmia latifolia x hirsuta Allen Bush a wet meadow

a wet meadow

the Pennsylvania botanist and Lutheran minister who did much of the early work on North American grasses

strongly acid soil

The later bloom is a quiet advantage in the garden: opening after the spring frosts have passed

who noticed the pairing of the deep maroon-purple flowers with the subtle leaf variegation

Kalmia latifolia x hirsuta Allen Bush a wet meadowThis seemingly unlikely hybrid crosses the familiar mountain laurel (Kalmia latifolia) with the diminutive, far less known sandhill laurel (Kalmia hirsuta) of the Deep South, two species that could hardly look more different. The cross was probably first made by the late, great Alabama nurseryman Tom Dodd, Jr., and further investigated by the Connecticut Kalmia expert Dr. Richard Jaynes, whose lifetime of work did more than anyone's to bring the genus