Plantae > Tracheophyta > Magnoliopsida > Ericales > Ericaceae > Calluna > Calluna vulgaris

Calluna vulgaris (heather)

Synonyms:

Wikipedia Abstract

Calluna vulgaris (known as common heather, ling, or simply heather) is the sole species in the genus Calluna in the family Ericaceae. It is a low-growing perennial shrub growing to 20 to 50 centimetres (7.9 to 19.7 in) tall, or rarely to 1 metre (39 in) and taller, and is found widely in Europe and Asia Minor on acidic soils in open sunny situations and in moderate shade. It is the dominant plant in most heathland and moorland in Europe, and in some bog vegetation and acidic pine and oak woodland. It is tolerant of grazing and regenerates following occasional burning, and is often managed in nature reserves and grouse moors by sheep or cattle grazing, and also by light burning.
View Wikipedia Record: Calluna vulgaris

Infraspecies

Calluna vulgaris f. aurea
Calluna vulgaris f. foxii
Calluna vulgaris f. searlei
Calluna vulgaris f. serotina
Calluna vulgaris f. vulgaris

Invasive Species

View ISSG Record: Calluna vulgaris

Attributes

Allergen Potential [1]  Medium
Dispersal Mode [5]  Anemochory
Edible [2]  May be edible. See the Plants For A Future link below for details.
Flower Type [2]  Hermaphrodite
Leaf Type [2]  Evergreen
Lifespan [3]  Perennial
Pollinators [2]  Bees, Flies, Lepidoptera, Wind
Structure [2]  Shrub
Usage [2]  The branches have many uses, including in thatching, as a bedding or a stuffing for mattresses, for insulation, basketry, rope making and for making brooms; The dried branches are a good fuel; The rootstock can be made into musical pipes; A yellow dye is obtained from the plant; The bark is a source of tannin; Heather can be grown as a low hedge and is quite useful as an edging to beds. It is fairly amenable to trimming; A useful ground cover plant for covering dry banks; The cultivar 'White Lawn' has been recommended; All except the very dwarf cultivars will need trimming each spring in order to keep them compact;
Height [2]  24 inches (0.6 m)
Width [2]  20 inches (0.5 m)
Light Preference [4]  Mostly Sunny
Soil Acidity [4]  Very Acid
Soil Fertility [4]  Infertile
Soil Moisture [4]  Moist
View Plants For A Future Record : Calluna vulgaris

Protected Areas

Ecosystems

Predators

Providers

Consumers

External References

USDA Plant Profile

NatureServe Explorer

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
♦ 1Derived from Allergy-Free Gardening OPALS™, Thomas Leo Ogren (2000)
♦ 2Plants For A Future licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
♦ 3PLANTATT - Attributes of British and Irish Plants: Status, Size, Life History, Geography and Habitats, M. O. Hill, C. D. Preston & D. B. Roy, Biological Records Centre, NERC Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (2004)
♦ 4ECOFACT 2a Technical Annex - Ellenberg’s indicator values for British Plants, M O Hill, J O Mountford, D B Roy & R G H Bunce (1999)
♦ 5Paula S, Arianoutsou M, Kazanis D, Tavsanoglu Ç, Lloret F, Buhk C, Ojeda F, Luna B, Moreno JM, Rodrigo A, Espelta JM, Palacio S, Fernández-Santos B, Fernandes PM, and Pausas JG. 2009. Fire-related traits for plant species of the Mediterranean Basin. Ecology 90: 1420.
Paula S. & Pausas J.G. 2013. BROT: a plant trait database for Mediterranean Basin species. Version 2013.06.
♦ 6Biological Records Centre Database of Insects and their Food Plants
♦ 7HOSTS - a Database of the World's Lepidopteran Hostplants Gaden S. Robinson, Phillip R. Ackery, Ian J. Kitching, George W. Beccaloni AND Luis M. Hernández
♦ 8Ecology of Commanster
♦ 9Food eaten by the free-living European bison in Białowieża Forest, Zofia GĘBCZYŃSKA, Marek GĘBCZYŃSKI and Ewa MARTYNOWICZ, Acta Theriologica 36 (3-4), 307-313, 1991.
♦ 10Jorrit H. Poelen, James D. Simons and Chris J. Mungall. (2014). Global Biotic Interactions: An open infrastructure to share and analyze species-interaction datasets. Ecological Informatics.
♦ 11Ben-Dov, Y., Miller, D.R. & Gibson, G.A.P. ScaleNet 4 November 2009
♦ 12Dama dama, George A. Feldhamer, Kelly C. Farris-Renner, and Celeste M. Barker, MAMMALIAN SPECIES No. 317, pp. 1-8 (1988)
♦ 13New Zealand Institute for Plant & Food Research Plant-SyNZ™ database
Abstract provided by DBpedia licensed under a Creative Commons License
Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0