The Heather is so well known that it scarcely requires any description.
It grows on moors and commons and mountain-sides in England, Scotland
and Ireland, and in autumn you will find it covering the ground like a
carpet, sometimes growing in bushes as high as your knee.
The flowers of the Heather are very tiny, and they vary in colour from a
pale pink to a deep purple. These flowers grow in spikes near the end of
thin woody stems, and each flower has a very short stalk which droops
slightly. The small flowers are bell-shaped, with the mouth of the bell
deeply divided into four parts. Outside this purple bell there is a
calyx made up of four purple pink sepals. These sepals are much longer
than the petals, and they are very crisp and dry, like tissue paper.
There is a double row of tiny green pointed leaves, clasping the bottom
of the purple flowers. At first you might mistake these for sepals, but
they have a different name, which you will learn some day.
The Heather leaves are very tiny. They have no stalks, and they grow
tightly pressed against the tough woody stems. When you look at them
closely you see that the edges are rolled back so as almost to touch
each other behind. When these leaves are withering they are often a
beautiful brown-red colour.