CHAPTER XXIX 



HEATHER 



DURING the months of late summer the plants of the 

 heather tribe, with their countless blossoms, transform 

 mile upon mile of lonely moorland from dark brown 

 to pink and crimson colours to delight the eye. 



In the Scottish Highlands three species of heather are 

 met with namely, the common ling or the typical heather 

 of the grouse moors, Calluna vulgaris, the bell heather, Erica 

 cinerea, and the more pinkish-flowered Erica tetralix, or cat 

 heather, as it is sometimes called. 



Of the three, Erica cinerea is perhaps the first to blossom, 

 and is often a full month ahead of the ling. It grows at its 

 best in very dry situations, and sometimes I have seen it 

 flowering with wonderfully vivid blooms of crimson in the 

 dried-up course of some hill stream, where no soil was ap- 

 parent. It frequently appears first after the burning of a 

 moor, holds the field for a few years, and is then surely but 

 gradually mastered by Calluna vulgaris. 



The bell heather has by far the most powerful scent of 

 all the heather plants ; a July visit to a moor where this heather 

 grows in profusion, when the. air is still and when the sun 

 shines strongly, will live long in the memory by reason of 

 the wonderful colouring of its blossoms visible, indeed, at 

 a distance of many miles and the fine scent which, from its 

 freshness and purity, is a thing to delight the senses. An 

 interesting point I have noticed is that the bell heather is later 

 in blossoming along the western seaboard than farther east 

 in Aberdeenshire, for instance and is rarely in full bloom 

 until August on the moors near the Atlantic. 



140 



