Erica baccans L.
berry heath
Glabrous shrub from c. 0.1-2.5 m high, usually erect, sometimes spreading. Lvs in whorls of 4, usually densely imbricate, curved and lying forward along stem, 4-9 mm long; margin revolute and contiguous, entirely concealing undersurface; apparent or false margin sometimes crenulate; petiole c. 1 mm long, appressed to shoot. Fls terminal, in clusters of (3)-4. Pedicels c. 5 mm long, pink and often obscured by the pink linear-oblong or lanceolate bracteoles overlapping the calyx. Sepals 4.5-5 mm long, elliptic-oblong or lanceolate-oblong, pink, keeled, ± mucronate. Corolla 5-6 mm long, globular, with 4 blunt-angled ridges and depressions between them, pink to rose, glabrous, constricted at apex; lobes short, broad, ± inflexed, sometimes deeper coloured than tube. Stamens included; filaments bent just below anthers, much > anthers; awns = or > anthers, fimbriate. Style included, short. Stigma capitate. Capsule c. 5 mm diam., almost globose, glabrous.
N.: N. Auckland, from around Kaitaia to just north of Kaipara Harbour, Great Barrier Id.
S.W. Cape area, South Africa 1937
Scrub in gumlands, roadsides, tussock grasslands.
FL Aug-Dec.
Berry heath has long been naturalised in N. Auckland and was first recorded in the Dargaville area. In a few modified hillsides on Great Barrier Id it is the dominant sp. forming the low scrub. It is also cultivated elsewhere and seeds freely in gardens. The ridges and depressions of the corolla enable it to be distinguished immediately from any other sp. in N.Z. Berry heath has also been recorded as E. stricta in N.Z. but this name correctly applies to an unrelated European sp.
