Erica cinerea L.
bell heather
Small shrub, sometimes very low and mat-forming, but often straggling and stems to c. 30 cm high. Shoots puberulent. Lvs usually in whorls of 3, sometimes opposite, 3-6 mm long, revolute with contiguous margins concealing lower surface, glabrous except sometimes for ciliolate apparent margin. Petioles very short. Fls in terminal racemes, sometimes appearing umbellate. Pedicels c. 3 mm long, densely puberulent. Bracteoles resembling sepals and closely overlapping them. Sepals 2-3 mm long, ovate or lanceolate-ovate, glabrous except for ciliate margin, similar in colour to corolla; apex acute. Corolla c. 6 mm long, urceolate, purple, rose, pink or occasionally white, glabrous; lobes < 1 mm long, triangular-ovate, becoming patent. Stamens included; anthers c. 1 mm long, deep purplish, with ± crested appendages. Style = or slightly exserted from corolla tube; stigma capitate. Capsule c. 1.5 mm long, ± globose, glabrous.
N.: well-established in Tongariro National Park often with Dracophyllum and Calluna vulgaris, Opotiki District (Bay of Plenty); S.: Bluecliffs Station, Hunters Hills (S. Canterbury).
W. Europe 1940
Tussock grassland, 600-900 m.
FL Dec-Feb.
Bell heather is widely cultivated particularly in cooler districts, and the wild population at Bluecliffs Station results from a deliberate attempt to naturalise the sp. A number of colour forms are in cultivation. Pink- or rose-flowered plants predominate in the Tongariro area but in the Hunters Hills, although purple fls are commonest, white and pink forms are also present.
Allan (1940) recorded the European E. tetralix L., cross-leaved heath, from the Volcanic Plateau. However, as there are no supporting specimens and he failed to mention E. cinerea, this is probably a record of E. cinerea. Also, the few later collections labelled E. tetralix are all referable to E. cinerea. E. tetralix is sometimes cultivated in N.Z. and is readily distinguished from E. cinerea by the partly open-backed lvs, villous sepals and hairy ovaries.
