96 Burn side. 



plants. This great rolling mass of blossom, formed of heads 

 of dense, closely packed flowers with tiny corollas divided 

 into five separate petals, whose tangled, matted stems form 

 an almost impassable thicket from three to four feet in 

 height, is the common ling (Calluna vulgaris), and it is to 

 this plant that the term " heather " is generally applied. 

 But this beautiful flower on the edge of the bank up 

 which we have just climbed, with its larger, lovely, waxen- 

 looking pink flowers, collected in a little cluster at the very 

 top of the stem, is an entirely different-looking plant, although 

 a true heath, and sometimes called heather. This is the 

 " bell heath" (Erica tetralix); the scientific name is derived 

 from " tetra," meaning " four," the leaves being arranged in 

 whorls of this number. There, by its side, is another heath 

 with similar urn-shaped, hollow flowers, but this does not 

 form a head at the top of the stem; the flowers, which are of 

 a rich rosy-purple tint, being arranged in whorls or rings 

 along the branches. This is called Erica cinerea, the specific 

 name meaning " ash coloured," and being given on account 

 of the general tint of the plant as a whole. These two latter 

 plants, although much alike in some ways, differ greatly in 

 others, and both are very different from the tall, woody, open- 

 flowered, purple ling, whose branches are covered with an 

 abundance of tiny blossoms. This last, which is so abundant 

 here, reminds us of the couplet 



" If heather bells were corn of the best, 

 Then Buccleuch would have a noble grist." 



Beautiful as are the flowers of all the heaths, I must own 

 that my fancy makes me favour the lovely "bellheath." 

 Pick that flower at your feet and examine one of its blossoms. 

 It is somewhat like a hollow urn, the stigma filling up the 



