DISTRIBUTION OF THE HEATHER. 



thousand furlongs of sea for an acre of barren ground ; 

 long heath, brown furze, anything." 



Ellacombe, in "Plant Lore of Shakespeare," re- 

 marks as follows : "Lyte says, There is in this coun- 

 try two kinds of heath, one of which beareth the flow- 

 ers alongst the stemmes, and is called Long Heath ;' 

 but it is supposed by some that the correct reading 

 is 'Ling, Heath,' etc. And in that case, heath would 

 be a generic word." 



Ling, according to a writer in "Notes and Que- 

 ries," is considered a synonym of backyard, a word 

 common in East Sussex ; a hairdresser there once re- 

 marking to a friend that he had been "watering his 

 plants in his ling." 



In Hampshire, Ling is a local term for a small 

 backyard or garden, the chief use to which it was 

 devoted being the washing and drying of linen. The 

 word, says another writer in the same periodical, might 

 be derived from the French Lingerie. 



The word Calluna is derived from the Greek 

 (Kalluno), signifying to adorn, and having reference 

 to both the beauty of the Heather and to its use as 

 a scrubbing brush or broom. 



Distribution of the Heather 



Watson, in his Cybele Britannica, gives three dis- 

 tinct zones of altitude for the distribution of the Al- 

 pine plants. The Super-Arctic Zone, bounded below 

 by the limit of the common Heather at an elevation 

 of about 3,000 feet ; lower down, the Mid-Arctic Zone, 



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