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Epigaea repens, the mayflower, trailing arbutus, or ground laurel, is a low, and spreading shrub in the family Ericaceae. It is found from Newfoundland to Florida, west to Kentucky and into the Northwest Territories.
Its stems are woody and the leafy twigs are covered in rust-colored hairs. The leaves are alternate, ovate (oval-shaped with rounded bases), evergreen, glabrous above and more or less hairy beneath, and borne on short rusty-hairy petioles.
The flowers are Merosity, pale pink to nearly white and very fragrant, about across when expanded, and borne in clusters at the ends of the branches. The calyx consists of five dry, overlapping sepals. The Petal is salverform, with a slender hairy tube spreading into five equal lobes. There are five stamens. The gynoecium consists of one pistil with a columnar style and a five-lobed stigma.
The genus name Epigaea, meaning "upon the earth", refers to this species' sprawling growth habit.
The Iroquois use a compound for labor pains in parturition, use a compound decoction for rheumatism, take a decoction of the leaves for indigestion, and they also take a decoction of the whole plant or roots, stalks and leaves taken for the kidneys.Herrick, James William 1977 Iroquois Medical Botany. State University of New York, Albany, PhD Thesis (p. 410)
The Forest Potawatomi regard this as their tribal flower and consider it to have come directly from their divinity.Smith, Huron H. 1933 Ethnobotany of the Forest Potawatomi Indians. Bulletin of the Public Museum of the City of Milwaukee 7:1-230 (p. 118)
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