Nature notes: heather

On the moors heather, which is often called ling, is at its best, with its mauve flowers on their wiry stems stretching for unbroken miles. Bees hum over it, and many hives are brought into the heather to take advantage of it. The heather honey is often sold as honeycombs. The sepals on the outside of the tiny heather flowers and the petals on the inside are the same colour, and they retain a pinkish shade into the winter after they have turned dry. White heather is also sometimes found. There are two other members of the heath family that are commonly found on the moors. Bell heather has distinct bell-shaped flowers that grow in pretty, hanging groups for some way down the stem, and are a rich purple in colour. Cross-leaved heath, by contrast, has rosy-pink flowers that grow in a cluster at the top. If you look at the leaves from above you see that they are arranged in fours, like crosses, around the stem. Cross-leaved heath prefers the damper places on the moor, and can give warning that you are approaching a bog.