216 The Romance of Wild Flowers 
Heaths, from which they made their way to South- 
west Ireland, South-west England, Western France, 
Spain, and Portugal; and in the case of the two 
hardier species, right the way up to Shetland and 
Northern Europe. The botanical portion of the 
evidence that this Atlantis existed does not consist 
solely of the Heaths: there are other plants of 
similar distribution, including the London Pride and 
another species of Saxifrage, also the great Irish 
Spurge, whose strange occurrence in Ireland and the 
Iberian Peninsula cannot otherwise be explained. 
The Heather, or Ling (Calluna vulgaris), though 
popularly associated with the Heaths, differs from 
them in important points. Its leaves are very small, 
and overlap each other; and the flowers may easily 
delude the novice. The sepals are coloured and longer 
than the bell-shaped corolla, whilst four little bracts 
under the calyx look like sepals. The eight stamens 
have horns, and the anthers open by short slits at 
the side. The flowers hang more or less horizontally, 
and to allow more room below for bees to get at the 
honey, the style and anthers take an upward inclina- 
tion, but the horns secure the shaking down of the 
pollen upon the insect, and as the style is long and 
protrudes beyond the sepals it comes first into contact 
with the visitor’s head. 
Another of the Heath-like plants. whose range is 
Iberia, Azores, and Ireland, is the St. Dabeoe’s Heath 
(Dabeocia polifolia), which is a native with us only 
by reason of its holding its footing on the boggy 
heaths of Mayo and Connemara. It has slender 
oval evergreen leaves, and beautiful rosy, purple, or 
white flowers, of a pitcher shape. ie 
