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Kalmia is a genus of about ten species of evergreen from 0.2–5 m tall, in the family Ericaceae (heath). They are native to North America (mainly in the eastern half of the continent) and Cuba. They grow in soils, with different species in wet acid bog habitats ( K. angustifolia, K. polifolia) and dry, sandy soils ( K. ericoides, K. latifolia).
Kalmia was named by Carl Linnaeus to honour his friend the botanist Pehr Kalm, who collected it in eastern North America during the mid-18th century. Earlier, Mark Catesby saw it during his travels in The Carolinas, and after his return to England in 1726, imported seeds. He described it, a costly rarity, in his Natural History of Carolina, as Chamaedaphne foliis tini, that is to say "with leaves like the Viburnum tinus"; the botanist and plant-collector Peter Collinson, who had begged some of the shrub from his correspondent John Custis in Virginia, wrote, when his plants flowered, that "I Really Think it exceeds the Laurus Tinus."
The leaf are 2–12 cm long and simple lanceolate. The are white, pink or purple, in corymbs of 10–50, reminiscent of Rhododendron flowers but flatter, with a star-like calyx of five conjoined ; each flower is 1–3 cm diameter. The fruit is a five-lobed capsule, which splits to release the numerous small .
The foliage contains , a group of closely related named after Leucothoe grayana, native to Japan, so it is toxic if eaten, with sheep being particularly prone to poisoning, hence the name lambkill used for some of the species. Other names for Kalmia, particularly Kalmia angustifolia, are sheep-laurel, lamb-kill, calf-kill, kill-kid, and sheep-poison, Natural History Education, Science, Technology regarding alternate names, accessed March 30, 2007. which may be written with or without the hyphen. (See species list below.) "Kid" here refers to a young goat, not a human child, but the foliage and twigs are toxic to humans as well.
It has also been called spoonwood because Kalm was told by Dutch settlers of North America that Native Americans made spoons from the wood. Plants of Colonial Days by Raymond Leech Taylor, p. 61. (1996) . Accessed March 30, 2007. Given its toxicity, this may be folklore rather than scientific fact.
Kalmias are popular garden shrubs, grown for their decorative flowers. They should not be planted where they are accessible to livestock due to the toxicity.
Kalmia species are used as food plants by the of some species including Coleophora which feeds exclusively on Kalmia.
Kalmia procumbens was treated as the only species in the genus Loiseleuria in older floras. The related Kalmiopsis leachiana and K. fragrans are rare shrubs Endemism to southwest Oregon.
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