20 Heather and other Allied Plants. [Sess. 



heather warms the heart of the exile and checks the microbes 

 of home-sickness. 



The double-flowering ling, Calluna vulgaris florc-pleno, is a 

 choice plant, and was found many years ago in Cornwall, and 

 has more recently been found in quantity at Invercauld. Of 

 all the heathers, none are so useful for lines or edgings to 

 beds as the varieties of common ling, all flowering nearly 

 at the same time. Erica vagans (Welsh Heath), has four 

 varieties : all are distinct and pretty ; the varieties grandi- 

 jiora and rubra, being stronger growers, are well suited for the 

 back or centre in any arrangement. Erica ciliaris, or Fringed- 

 leaved Heath, a lovely small -growing species, is found in 

 Cornwall and Galway. A hybrid known as E. ciliaris, var. 

 Watsoni, is found in Cornwall only. Menziesia polifolia, or 

 St Dabeoc's Heath, two varieties, is found in Connemara and 

 Mayo. These are choice late-flowering plants, all of which 

 associate well with the heather, and hang out their bells till 

 the end of the year. Menziesia ccerulea, the Menzies' badge, 

 is a rare Scottish plant, found only on the Sow of Athol. 

 Tradition hands down to us many stories connected with the 

 finding of this rare plant. 



In the planting of heaths, it may be as well to say there 

 is no short cut to making an immediate display, as in the 

 case of soft-wooded plants. However, with the ground pre- 

 pared for the reception of the plants, the planting may be 

 undertaken in the early autumn, when the plants will be 

 established before winter. Small plants with nice balls of 

 earth attached, lifted from where they have been thriving and 

 planted firmly in their new quarters, will never look back, and 

 will flower the first year. If the autumn-flowering heaths are 

 clipped over in the early spring they soon start into growth, 

 make bushy plants, and flower abundantly, while the spriug- 

 and summer-flowering kinds should be cut over as soon as 

 done flowering. The beauty belonging to clumps of heather 

 as seen on the mountain-side, some of them of great age, 

 is due to their being eaten over annually by sheep, 

 which causes them to branch out and flower in dense 

 round heads, and under cultivation clipping has exactly the 

 same effect. 



For those who have a desire to take up the cultivation of 



