Erica cinerea
species of plant
Erica cinerea, the bell heather, is a species of flowering plant in the heath family Ericaceae, native to western and central Europe.
Description
It is a low, spreading shrub growing to 15–60 centimetres (6–23+1⁄2 inches) tall, with fine needle-like leaves 4–8 millimetres (1⁄8–3⁄8 in) long arranged in whorls of three. The flowers are bell-shaped, purple (rarely white), 4–7 mm (1⁄8–1⁄4 in) long, produced in mid- to late summer. The flowers are dry, similar in texture to the strawflower.
Etymology
The Latin specific epithet cinerea means "ash coloured".
Distribution and habitat
E. cinerea is native to the west of Europe, where it is most abundant in Britain and Ireland, France, northern Spain and southern Norway. It also occurs in the Faroe Islands, Belgium, Germany, north-western Italy, and the Netherlands.
It mostly occurs on moors and heathland with relatively dry, acidic, nutrient poor soils. It occurs in coastal dune heath and dune slack and occasionally in woodland.
Ecology
The plant provides a great deal of nectar for pollinators.
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This entry incorporates text from “Erica cinerea” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.