Tas. 8018. 
ERICA tusiTantca. 
Western Europe. 
Ericacez. Tribe ERIcEx. 
Erica, Linn.; Benth. et Hook. f. Gen. Plant. vol. ii. p. 590. 
Erica lusitanica, Rudolph in Schrad. Journ. vol. ii. (1799), p. 286; Coste, 
Flore Descr. et Illustr, de la France, vol. ii. p. 518; Bean in Gard. 
Chron. 1904, vol. i. pp. 84 et 91, £41; ab EH. arborea, Linn., ramis pilis 
simplicibus vestitis, foliis tenuioribus longioribus, pedicellis brevioribus, 
calycis brevioris dentibus acutis, et corolle majoris dentibus quam tubo 
quadruplo brevioribus differt.—E. polytrichifolia, Salisb. in Trans. Linn. 
Soc. vol. vi. (1802), p. 329; EH. codonodes, Kindl. in Bot. Reg. vol. xx. 
ae t. 1698; Gard. Chron. 1877, p. 463, f. 70, et 1896, vol. i. p. 487, 
This valuable winter-flowering shrub was introduced 
prior to 1835, when Lindley published it as a new species. 
He did not identify it with H. polytrichifolia, Salisb., with 
which he compared it, but suggested that it might be a 
variety of H. arborea, L., differing in having a very small 
stigma. 
Lindley obtained his specimens from Wm. Wood, 
Nurseryman, of Maresfield, Sussex, where it was reported 
to be quite hardy, ten to twelve feet high, and beginning 
to flower in February, and continuing on to May. It does 
not appear to have become very widely known. It was 
in cultivation at Kew between 1843 and 1853, when 
A. Williamson, then Curator of the ‘‘ Royal Pleasure 
Grounds,” collected it. The variety was inferior to the 
one now cultivated at Kew, and the name polytrichifolia, 
by which it was known, was peculiarly appropriate. The 
same variety existed at Kew in 1856, when a specimen 
was preserved for the Herbarium. In 1877 the present 
form was figured in the Gardeners’ Chronicle, and its 
merits described. In 1888 Kew procured living plants 
from the Lisbon Botanic Garden, and these flourished and 
passed unscathed through the excessively cold winter of 
1890-91, but succumbed in 1895. There are flowering 
specimens in the Herbarium collected in the months of 
March and October, 1891. Last season it was very much 
blackened and damaged at Kew by the fogs at the 
beginning of the year. 
JunE Ist, 1905. 
