Kalmia is a genus of about ten species of evergreen shrubs from 0.2–5 m tall, in the family Ericaceae (heath).

Kalmia was named by Linnaeus to honour his friend the botanist Pehr Kalm, who collected it in eastern North America during the mid-18th century.

He described it, a costly rarity, in his Natural History of Carolina, as Chamaedaphne foliis tini, that is to say "with leaves like the Laurustinus"; 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.

It has also been called spoonwood because Kalm was told by Dutch settlers of North America that Native Americans made spoons from the wood.

These two extant species grow in the eastern part of North America from (Quebec to Florida) on acid swampy or marshy soils.