172 FLORA DOMESTICA. 



tempt, at the same time that he celebrates the colour of 

 the flowers : 



c E'en the wild heath displays its purple dyes/ 



" Mr. Millar, so late as the year 1768, makes mention 

 of no more than five ; four of which, as being wild, he 

 consigns to oblivion." 



There are now some hundred species ; of which many 

 require the heat of a stove, and very few of them are 

 hardy enough to bear this climate unsheltered. The 

 species from the Cape are many of them very beautiful. 



All Europe, and the temperate parts of the vast Russian 

 empire, abound with Heath. The Common Heath, which 

 is little regarded in warmer climates, is used for a variety 

 of purposes in the bleak and barren Highlands of Scot- 

 land, and in other northern countries. The poor people 

 use it as thatch for the roofs of their huts, and construct 

 the walls with alternate layers of heath, and a kind 

 of cement made of black earth and straw. The hardy 

 Highlanders frequently make their beds with it. In the 

 Western Isles it affords a dye. Woollen cloth boiled 

 in alum water, and afterwards in a strong decoction 

 made from the green tops and flowers of this plant, be- 

 comes of a beautiful orange-colour. Brettius relates, that a 

 kind of ale brewed from these young tops was much used 

 by the Picts : and it is said to be still an ingredient in 

 the beer in some of the Western Isles. In many parts of 

 Great Britain besoms are made of this Heath ; and it is 

 an excellent fuel. The flowers are either a kind of rose- 

 colour slightly tinged with purple, or they are quite 

 white. Bees collect a great quantity of honey from them. 

 This kind, the Fine-leaved, the Cornish, the Ciliate- 

 leaved, the Many-flowered, the Irish, and the Cross-leaved, 

 are hardy, and will bear the open air. The latter is very 

 handsome, and blows twice in the year. 



