We now come to those interesting plants known collectively as Heaths, and which add so much beauty to our heaths and moors. They belong to the order _Ericaceæ_, and are all readily distinguished by their bushy appearance, hard woody stems, and small, simple leaves arranged in pairs or whorls. The flowers, too, are very characteristic, each one having an inferior calyx of four sepals; a bell-shaped or pitcher-shaped, persistent corolla, with five lobes; eight stamens free from the corolla; and a four-chambered ovary that ripens to a capsule.
The Cross-leaved Heath (_Erica Tetralix_) is common all over Britain, especially so in the West. It is a wiry little shrub, from a foot to eighteen inches high, much branched at the base. Its leaves are short, narrow, downy above, fringed with stiff hairs, and arranged in whorls of four, each whorl forming a cross. The drooping flowers, which appear during July and August, are usually rose-coloured, occasionally white, and are arranged in close, terminal, one-sided clusters.
The Ciliated Heath (_Erica ciliaris_), perhaps the most beautiful of the British species, is found only in the West of England, but is really abundant on some of the Devon and Cornwall moorlands. It is of a somewhat straggling nature, and its ovate leaves, which are downy above, and fringed with stiff hairs, are in whorls of three or four. The flowers are sometimes nearly half an inch long, of a bright rose or crimson colour, and are arranged in broken, one-sided racemes. The corolla is pitcher-shaped, with four lobes round the narrow mouth. The plant reaches a length of from twelve to eighteen inches, and flowers from June to September.
[Illustration: THE BELL HEATHER OR FINE-LEAVED HEATH.]
Our last example of this genus--the Bell Heather or Fine-leaved Heath (_E. cinerea_)--is, perhaps, the commonest of all, for it abounds on the moors and heaths of nearly all parts of Britain. It is a very tough and wiry shrub, from one to two feet high, with narrow leaves in whorls of three or four, and smaller leaves in their axils. The flowers vary in colour, being either purple, crimson, rose, or occasionally white. They are in dense, leafy racemes, not one-sided, but rather regularly whorled. The time of flowering is from July to September.