Dwarf Spanish heath
Erica umbellata
Family · Ericaceae · Harmless
The pink heath that paints schist and granite slopes in spring, its flowers gathered in small posies at the branch tips rather than along them. It is a southwest European endemic.
Scrubland · Uplands · Pine woods
Also known asumbellate heath
How to tell it
A low shrub, twenty to eighty centimetres, much branched. Needle leaves in whorls of three. The flowers are the mark: four to eight together in a tight umbel at the tip of each shoot, bright pink or lilac, shaped like a round bell with brown anthers protruding.
What it is confused with
Heather
Calluna vulgaris
Heather has minute scale leaves pressed to the stem in four rows and flowers in a loose spike along the branch; umbellate heath has needle leaves and flowers in a posy at the tip. Neither is dangerous.
Open sheet →What it is for
No food use. It served as animal bedding and broom material, and is one of the plants that best tells a slope's history: where umbellate heath dominates, there was fire and the soil is acid and poor.