FIR-WOODS AND HEATHER 



293 



prevails have a more subdued and tender glow. It grows on 

 many commons and rough fields where the bell-heather is 

 unknown. The common bell-heather is also known as the 

 fine-leaved heath, while the cross-leaved heath also has bell- 

 shaped blossoms, but rosy instead of purple. It is the 

 common bell-heather which stains the July heaths of the 

 lowlands and the high moors in August with their most 

 brilliant purple dye. As the blossoms pass over they wither 



and grow rusty-red, first at the tips and later entirely. When 

 these rusty blossoms mingle with the purple of the full bloom, 

 they produce the sheets of crimson which often stain the 

 more distant tracts of heath in a moorland landscape. The 

 rosy cross-leaved heath does not grow in uninterrupted 

 carpets like the purple bell-heather and the ling, and is not 

 abundant enough to have much effect in painting the land- 

 scape. It prefers slightly moister ground than the other two 

 species, and generally grows in slight depressions where 

 water often collects, and at the base of tufts and islands of 

 the purple heather and ling. Its leaves are delicate and 

 hoary, in keeping with the soft pink of its bells, and indi- 

 vidually it is the most attractive of the three species. In the 



