Azores heath
Erica azorica
Family · Ericaceae · Harmless
The heath that builds the Azorean landscape, from sea level to the summits. A shrub or small tree twisted by the wind, covered in white or pale pink flowers in spring.
Scrubland · Uplands · Oak woods
Also known asAzorean tree heath
How to tell it
Shoots and leaves covered in short white hairs, which sets it apart from mainland tree heath, which is smooth. Needle leaves in whorls of three. Short bell flowers, white to pale pink, in groups of three to six at the tips. It grows twisted and low on windy coasts and upright in valleys. Range: endemic to the Azores.
What it is confused with
Tree heath
Erica arborea
They are very close and both make a tree. The Azorean one has hairy young shoots and exists only in the archipelago; tree heath has smooth shoots and is mainland. Neither is dangerous.
Open sheet →What it is for
It gave firewood, charcoal, brooms and stakes on every island, and its roots served for pipe bowls. No food use. It is a structural plant: heath scrub holds volcanic slopes that without it come down with the rain.