HEATH TRIBE 213 



umbellate ; flo\vei--stalks nearly smooth. This species much resembles the 

 last, its broad egg-shaped leaves with their upper surface and midrib smooth 

 being the most marked distinction. The stem is irregularly branched below, 

 and the flowers, which appear in July and August, are smaller, and of a 

 deeper purple than the last. It has been found in G-alway, Ireland, and is 

 regarded by Hooker as a sub-species of E. tefralix. 



4. Fine-leaved Heath (E. cin6rea). — Leaves in threes, very narrow, 

 smooth ; flowers cgg-sliaped, in crowded, whorled, leafy clusters ; 

 perennial. It is to the beautiful drooping reddish-purple bells of this species, 

 mingled with the paler purple flowers of the Ling, that the wide heath-lands 

 of England and Scotland owe most of their summer beauty, and present the 

 rich hue which may be descried miles away. These two plants are usually 

 included in the term Heather, though many botanical writers use that word as 

 relating only to the Ling. Our fathers probably intended either by their word 

 Hadden, Avhich is the old name for Heather ; and until late years, the Ling- 

 was placed in the Heath genus, and termed Erica vulgaris. Mr. Thompson, 

 remarking of the Heaths in general, says: "These plants, as their names 

 imply, are found always on bog soil, and the component parts of that earth 

 may be taken as similar everywhere, yet it cannot be denied that the Heaths 

 of different contiguous hills are extremely different both in kind and degree. 

 Red Heather {E. cine'rea) is the only species found for miles together on the 

 grey wacke of the Isle of Man ; E. Utralix the only species for several hundred 

 yards on Blackstone Edge ; the Ling is the only species for miles on the 

 granite of Goat-fell, in the Isle of Arran. Each of these species may be seen 

 in sufficient quantity wherever bog soil is found, but they may reasonably be 

 claimed by those districts only where with equal climates they are produced 

 in greatest luxuriance ; and few observers of the common features of a land- 

 scape can have failed to notice the great diversity of character in these 

 universal natives of our moors, on the different geological arrangements of 

 the country. Few can have omitted to remark the total want of them on 

 bogs whose substratum is chalk or mountain lime ; and many have been 

 delighted with their abundance and surpassing beauty on the primitive 

 ranges of Wales and Scotland. The Ling of Pont Aberglaslyn, near 

 Beddgelert, yields to none in the richness of its flowers; and that of the 

 gravel range of Avan, in the Frith of Clyde, is often three and a half feet in 

 height, arborescent and erect, like the finest specimens of Cape Heaths culti- 

 vated in our greenhouses. The poor natives of that island make an 

 economical substitute for hemp from its twigs ; and the roots occasionally 

 thrown out of the soil by the mountain torrent are two inches in thickness, 

 and capable of a high polish, being nearly as hard as ebony. The Cape 

 of Good Hope itself, which has supplied our exotic collectors with nearly 

 300 species of this genus, is one of the finest granite ranges in the world." 



Heather tall and stout like this is rare, but everyone can recall wide 

 tracts of land which the plants cover in great luxuriance, especially in Scot- 

 land, which the poet has distinguished as the 



" Land of brown Heath and shaggy wood." 



Heath is the most social of plants, and it has been said that if other plants 



