Erica.] ERicacex (Guthrie & Bolus). 5 
entirely free from the anther-cells. Disk more or less prominent, 
lobed or crenulate, rarely obsolete. Ovary sessile or stipitate, mostly 
4- (very rarely 8-celled); cells 2-co-ovuled. Style filiform ; stigma 
simple, capitate, peltate or eyathiform, very rarely 4-fid. Capsule 
globose, conical or cylindrical, loculicidally 4-valved, valves separat- 
ing from the axis, mostly many-seeded. Seeds minute, ellipsoidal, 
more rarely lenticular, or much compressed and margined or more 
rarely winged. 
Perennial shrubs, from a few inches to 10 ft., or rarely more; leaves 3-6-nate, 
in whorls, less commonly scattered or opposite, most usually rigid and narrow, 
linear, trigonous, margins revolute and connate with the underside, leaving only 
a channel more or less wide and deep between them, or less commonly, flatter, 
broader and “ open-backed,” i.e. the margins revolute or reflexed, but leaving the 
underside visible, very rarely nearly flat ; inflorescence mostly normally terminal, 
or often axillary (the flowers clustered in the axils, at the ends of partially or 
entirely arrested lateral branchlets), very rarely truly indefinite and racemose ; 
flowers solitary, more commonly 2—4-nate, umbellate or capitate; pedicels 
1-flowered ; bracts 3, rarely fewer, very rarely wanting. The flowers are ferti- 
lized in some cases by the wind, in others by insects, and many of the longer 
and tubular (Subgenus I. Syrinaopea) by birds (cf. G. F. Scott-Elliot, in 
Ann. Bot. iv. 269, 270). 
The Ericacex are chiefly xeropbilous mostly on rocky mountain-sides, lower 
hills, or sandy plains, very rarely on wet or marshy ground. They inhabit for 
the most part the littoral strip, some 50 or 60 miles in breadth, from the Olifants 
River on the west to the Van Stadensberg Range on the east, diminishing rapidly 
in number beyond these limits. Their greatest concentration may be on the Cape 
Peninsula, where 92 species have been recorded in an area of 198 square miles; 
but the home of the more beautiful, and now rarer, species is in the Caledon 
Division. Many species have a very small distribution-area. 
Disteis. Species over 500, of which 469 are endemic in South Africa, 6 or 8 
in Tropical Africa, and the rest dispersed from the Atlantic Isles through Europe 
and North Africa to the Orient. 
This genus is remarkable for an unusual degree of variability in the form of 
almost all its organs. It is therefore one difficult of definition as to its species, 
and of arrangement into satisfactory natural groups. Many of the species are 
obviously allied to others in very different sections ; and in most of the sections 
and subgenera it is necessary to note exceptions to the general technical 
characters. Many authors have treated of them with great divergency of views ; 
and the earlier botanists unduly multiplied the species as they arrived from the 
Cape. At the end of the 18th, and the early part of the 19th centuries, the 
heaths became fashionable in European gardens, were much hybridized and 
copiously figured. This has added to the difficulty of definition, and still more to 
the confusion of the synonomy. In respect of the latter, we have had largely to 
rely upon others, and can but hope at most to have cleared up some few of the 
obscurities by which the genus has been surrounded, leaving many in which, 
owing to absence of types and imperfect descriptions, it may continue to be 
involved. a 
The following terms have been used in this genus :—the flowers are said to be 
calycine (Aiton) or corolline acording as the calyx or corolla predominates in 
the general appearance of the flower, which depends upon either the position 
or relative size of those organs. The relative height of the calyx and corolla 
is taken from the flowers when viewed horizontally, and, on account of the usual 
spreading of the sepals, appears at first sight at variance with the measurements 
of those organs when separated and flattened out. The shape of the anther-cell 
is described from its profile, unless otherwise stated. Anthers projecting forwards 
at the base are termed prognathous; these occur chiefly in § 8, Zuryloma, — 
Anthers neither distinctly included nor exserted, but plainly visible at the level _ 
of the mouth of the corolla-tube, are said to be manifest. Awe 
