Calluna vulgaris Heather

Calluna vulgaris, Heather (Ling), is a very common ericaceous dwarf shrub of acidic soils in heathland, moorland, sessile-oak woodland, mountain cliff ledges, bogs and sand dunes and it is one of the defining components of dwarf-shrub heath. In late summer the purple flowers can paint large areas of heath and moor in the uplands. White flowered plants also occur occasionally in these populations. It is a good coloniser of newly created sites on acidic soils, such as clear-felled conifer coupes, with young plants sometimes generating from buried seed banks. It is common and widely distributed in West Glamorgan and is particularly abundant in suitable places on the acidic valley coalfield soils. Nevertheless, large areas of dwarf shrub heath in the Neath and Afan valleys were removed and replaced with conifers during the expansion of forestry plantations in the second half of the 20th Century.

Native