74 CHAPTER IX. 



Erica Scoparia is not common : it flowers later 

 than the Tree Heath, with which it may be found 

 growing. The flowers are greenish. 



Ling (Calluna) purples, as with us, the scrubby 

 dried-up places where less enduring plants could not 

 exist, and loves the steep banks of wooded ravines 

 that face the sun. 



The Alpine Rose (Rhododendron), the Bilberry 

 ( Vaccininm Myrtillus), Pyrola, and the other Alpine 

 plants allied to the Heath, are as abundant in the 

 mountains a few miles north of Nice as they are in 

 Switzerland. 



The Cape is the home of the Heaths. In 

 America there is not a single species of Erica, but 

 Ling (Calluna] is met with in Newfoundland and 

 near Boston. England has live heaths ; Ireland six 

 or seven ; in Spain and Portugal the species are still 

 more numerous. The Riviera reckons four ; with the 

 Alpine E. Carnea, five. It has been conjectured that 

 the Heaths spread from the Azores, or from some 

 land in that direction now submerged ; this is the 

 traditional " Lost Atlantis." 



