CCIV.— LING. 
Calluna vulgaris Hull. 
T HE Sub-Family Ericoide<e are mostly wiry undershrubs with that type of minute 
xerophytic leaf which is specially designated as “ ericoid,” with a persistent 
corolla, with their anther-chambers diverging at their upper ends, and with a capsular 
fruit. The ericoid leaf is small, but often closely imbricate, evergreen, and leathery, 
with inrolled edges often fringed with hairs. This structure, by merely reducing 
transpiration to a minimum, would render its possessors capable of resisting drought 
in hot, dry climates such as many of them have to endure in South Africa ; but it is 
even better adapted for cold, damp, mountain air. The low temperature of the soil- 
water or its acidic character may often limit the water-supply that the plant derives 
from its roots ; but the stomata, opening into the space enclosed by the inrolled 
edges, are protected from the light which would cause them to transpire freely, whilst 
at the same time, being protected by the hairs, they are not liable to be choked by 
moisture, whether dew, mist, rain, or melting snow, but can perform their restricted 
function directly the sun comes out, or even actually during rain. In Ling it has 
been noticed that the leaves, which are as a rule closely adpressed to the stem in 
four vertical rows — giving the shoot a four-sided appearance, and are thus further 
protected from direct sunlight — diverge when the plant is growing in shade so as to 
receive some light. 
The distinctive features of the genus Calluna are the quadripartite membranous 
coloured calyx, deceptively surrounded at its base by four green bracts and exceeding 
in length the bell-shaped, four-cleft corolla ; and the septicidal and septifragal capsule. 
Translating these two associated technicalities, it may be explained that four valves 
separate from the ripe four-chambered capsule, opening at the septa between the 
chambers, but leaving the septa themselves attached to the large central axis. 
Adopting Dioscorides’s name ’ EpecKr), Ereike , Linn6 called the Ling, Erica vulgaris ; 
but Richard Anthony Salisbury felt compelled to separate it, in 1 802, on account of 
the above characters, from the other Heaths ; and Smith, who was generally unwilling 
to recognise his rival’s work, could not but agree. 
“ Although,’ ’ he writes, in his “ English Flora,” in 1828, “ there is but one known species of this genus, the most common, 
if not perhaps the original, Erica of Dioscorides, Tournefort, or Linnaeus, its generic distinctions are so very important that I 
gladly concur with Mr. Salisbury, who first pointed out those distinctions. To avoid the inconvenience of giving a new generic 
appellation to the hundreds of plants, familiar to everybody as Erica y or Heaths, he has judiciously called our common Ling, 
Calluna y from KaWvuu ; which is doubly suitable, whether, with Mr. Salisbury and Dr. Hull, we take it to express a cleansing 
property, brooms being made of Ling ; or whether we adopt the more common sense of the word, to ornament or adorn , which 
is very applicable to the flowers.” 
Ling grows a foot or two in height, branching freely, its leafy shoots extending 
beyond the raceme of flowers which hang mainly to one side of the shoot. The 
leaves are about a fourteenth of an inch in length, in opposite decussate pairs. 
They are sessile, acute, and so keeled as to be almost triangular in section, slightly 
produced in basal lobes so as to be approximately arrow-shaped, and varying in 
