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.
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.
Where it occurs
Each square is an area with recorded observations of this plant. The lighter background is the set of areas where any of the entries has been observed, and serves as a reference. Note what this is not: it is not where the plant lives, it is where people record it, so trails and towns always look fuller than the mountains. Data from GBIF.
Sources
Community
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