560 ERICA. [CLASS vm. ORDER i. 



"It is not a little remarkable," observes Sir W. J. Hooker in the 

 English Botany, Supplement, t. 2774, " that notwithstanding the 

 limited extent of the British Islands, and the number of zealous 

 Botanists they have produced, two of our most remarkable native 

 plants, the most beautiful of a most highly beautiful genus, and 

 covering the ground as they do to an extent of some acres, should, till 

 within these few years, have remained undiscovered and unknown, save 

 to the shepherd and the illiterate peasant of the neighbourhood." 

 The other heath which the distinguished author here refers to is the 

 Erica ciliaris, (Fig. 639.) A circumstance so remarkable as this in 

 regard to two of our most beautiful native plants will not be passed 

 unnoticed, especially by our young Botanical friends ; it gives them 

 the greatest encouragement to persevere in their researches, and they 

 may be the happy discoverers of other new plants, and swell still 

 further the list of our native Flora ; for while such plants as the two 

 here mentioned have been passed over and unnoticed, we may sup- 

 pose with great probability, that there are others remaining to be 

 discovered, though perhaps not so conspicuous as these. 



4. E. va'gans, Linn. (Fig. 638.) Cornish Heath. Anthers without 

 awns, of two separate lobes, and as well as the simple style protruded 

 beyond the deeply four-cleft campanulate corolla ; calyx coloured ; 

 bractea below the middle of the peduncle ; flowers axillary, numerous, 

 crowded ; leaves four in a whorl. 



English Botany, t. 3. English Flora, vol. ii. p. 227. Hooker, 

 British Flora, vol. i. p. 180. Lindley, Synopsis, p. 174. 



Root woody, fibrous. Stem erect, from one to two feet high, much 

 branched above, round, smooth bark, but rough with the scars of the 

 leaves, which are crowded, in whorls of from three to five, linear, with 

 a furrow on the under side, smooth, dark green, on short stout foot- 

 stalks, the margins rolled back, and sometimes fringed with very fine 

 short hairs. Flowers axillary, numerous, crowded from about the 

 middle of the branches upwards, each on a slender peduncle, smooth, 

 shorter than the leaves, having several scaly fringed bractea below its 

 middle, frequently only at the base. Calyx of four thin coloured 

 concave pieces. Corolla pink or white, bell shaped, with a deeply 

 four cleft limb of acute spreading segments. Stamens with simple 

 s\euder filaments, longer than the corolla, the anthers dark red, of two 

 separate spreading single celled conical lobes, opening at the apex. 

 Style simple, slender, longer than the stamens, with an obtuse four 

 notched stigma. 



Habitat. Heaths in Cornwall; abundant on Goonnely Downs, 

 between Helston and the Lizard, and occasionally in some other of the 

 south-western parishes of Cornwall ; Furze-croft, near Enys Mylor. 

 Miss Warren, of Flushing. 



Shrub ; flowering in July and August. 



This beautiful species of Erica was confounded by our early Bo- 

 tanists with E. multiflora, a species common in the South of Europe. 



