Erica arborea

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Erica arborea
Erica arborea JPG1.jpg
Scientific classification OOjs UI icon edit-ltr.svg
Kingdom: Plantae
Clade: Tracheophytes
Clade: Angiosperms
Clade: Eudicots
Clade: Asterids
Order: Ericales
Family: Ericaceae
Genus: Erica
Species:
E. arborea
Binomial name
Erica arborea
L.
Erica arborea range.svg
Distribution map
Erica arborea Northwest Africa Erica arborea 12.JPG
Erica arborea Northwest Africa
Small tree-sized examples in Madeira Erica arborea, Madeira.jpg
Small tree-sized examples in Madeira

Erica arborea, the tree heath or tree heather, is a species of flowering plant (angiosperms) in the heather family Ericaceae, native to the Mediterranean Basin and Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania in East Africa. [1] It is also cultivated as an ornamental.

Contents

The wood, known as briar root (French: bruyère, Catalan: bruc, Portuguese: betouro, Spanish: brezo), is extremely hard and heat-resistant, and is used for making smoking pipes. Leaf fossils attributed to this species were described for the Mio-Pleistocene deposit of São Jorge in Madeira Island. [2]

Description

Erica arborea is an upright evergreen shrub or small tree with a typical height in the wild of some 7 m (23 ft), especially in Africa, but more typically 1–4 m (3–13 ft) in gardens. It bears dark green needle-like leaves and numerous small honey-scented bell-shaped white flowers. It is a calcifuge, preferring acid soil in an open sunny situation. [3]

Distribution and habitat

The heather has a disjunct distribution, including Macaronesia, the Mediterranean Basin, Western Caucasus, eastern Africa, and the Arabian Peninsula.

In Macaronesia, it occurs in thermophilous forests, dominating dry and shallow soils, southern aspects, and forest margins. [4] Throughout the Mediterranean Basin, its distribution is not continuous, extending from the Atlantic coasts of Portugal and Spain to the coast of the Black Sea in Turkey and Georgia. The heather partecipates to the Mediterranean maquis shrublands in semi-harid habitats, but can also be found in forest undergrowth up to 1400 m a.s.l. in fresher and more humid environments. It prefers acidic or acidified soils derived from siliceous substrates. [5] [4] It is also present in an isolated population in the Tibesti Mountains (Chad) in the Sahara, where it occurs at the top of upper montane desert steppe vegetation between 2500 and 3000 m a.s.l. [6] In eastern Africa is normally referred to as giant heather. It occurs in the Ethiopian highlands, in the highest mountains along the East African Rift System, from southern Uganda to northern Malawi. It is also present in the Sarawat Mountains in the southwestern Arabian Peninsula, including Yemen and Saudi Arabia. In Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, the heather is a constituent of the tropical alpine vegetation, dominating the shrubland above the treeline in mountain areas between 3000 and 4000 m a.s.l. [4]

Naturalised populations occur in south-eastern Australia. [7]

Cultivars

Several cultivars and hybrids have been developed for garden use, of which the following have gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit: [8]

Other tall growing heaths, including the Portugal Heath ( Erica lusitanica ) and channel heath ( Erica canaliculata ) may also sometimes be called tree heath.

Uses

Briar pipes on a circular pipe rack Smoking pipe rack.jpg
Briar pipes on a circular pipe rack

The wood, known as briar root, is extremely hard, dense and heat-resistant, and is primarily used for making smoking pipes, as it does not affect the aroma of tobacco. The football-sized tubers are harvested at the age of 30 to 60 years. They are cooked for several hours, then dried for several months before they are further processed.

The wood is also used for making jewellery, fountain pens and knife handles.

See also

Related Research Articles

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Erica is a genus of roughly 857 species of flowering plants in the family Ericaceae. The English common names heath and heather are shared by some closely related genera of similar appearance. The genus Calluna was formerly included in Erica – it differs in having even smaller scale-leaves, and the flower corolla consisting of separate petals. Erica is sometimes referred to as "winter heather" to distinguish it from Calluna "summer heather".

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Calluna vulgaris, common heather, ling, or simply heather, is the sole species in the genus Calluna in the flowering plant family Ericaceae. It is a low-growing evergreen shrub growing to 20 to 50 centimetres tall, or rarely to 1 metre (40 in) and taller, and is found widely in Europe and Asia Minor on acidic soils in open sunny situations and in moderate shade.

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<i>Erica vagans</i> Species of flowering plant

Erica vagans, the Cornish heath or wandering heath, is a species of flowering plant in the family Ericaceae, native to Ireland, Cornwall, western France and Spain. It is a vigorous, spreading, evergreen heather reaching 75 cm (30 in) tall and wide, with pink flowers borne in racemes 14 cm (6 in) long in summer and autumn. The Latin specific epithet vagans literally means "wandering"; in this context it means "widely distributed".

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<i>Prunus lusitanica</i> Species of flowering plant

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<i>Erica lusitanica</i> Species of flowering plant

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<i>Erica cerinthoides</i> Species of flowering plant

Erica cerinthoides is a species of heath native to South Africa, Lesotho and Eswatini. Common names include fire erica, fire heath, red hairy heath, rooihaartjie or klipheide. Throughout its range the species shows marked variation in habit, flower characteristics and hairiness. A form with white flowers is found in Eswatini and the South African province of Mpumalanga while the variety E. cerinthoides var. barbertona has shorter flowers.

<i>Erica erigena</i> Species of flowering plant

Erica erigena, the Irish heath, is a European species of flowering plant in the family Ericaceae.

<i>Erica canaliculata</i> Species of flowering plant

Erica canaliculata, the channelled heath or hairy grey heather, is a South African species of flowering plant in the family Ericaceae.

<i>Erica terminalis</i> Species of flowering plant

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paul da Serra</span>

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References

  1. 1 2 Harvey-Brown, Y.; Barstow, M. (2017). "Erica arborea". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species . 2017: e.T73094040A109616921. doi: 10.2305/IUCN.UK.2017-3.RLTS.T73094040A109616921.en . Retrieved 19 November 2021.
  2. Góis-Marques, Carlos A.; Madeira, José; Sequeira, Miguel Menezes de (2018-01-26). "Inventory and review of the Mio–Pleistocene São Jorge flora (Madeira Island, Portugal): palaeoecological and biogeographical implications". Journal of Systematic Palaeontology. 16 (2): 159–177. doi:10.1080/14772019.2017.1282991. hdl: 10400.13/4191 . ISSN   1477-2019. S2CID   132935444.
  3. RHS A-Z encyclopedia of garden plants. United Kingdom: Dorling Kindersley. 2008. p. 1136. ISBN   978-1405332965.
  4. 1 2 3 Désamoré, A., Laenen, B., Devos, N., Popp, M., González-Mancebo, J. M., Carine, M. A., Vanderpoorten, A. (2011). Out of Africa: north-westwards Pleistocene expansions of the heather Erica arborea. Journal of Biogeography, 38(1), 164-176. DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2699.2010.02387.x
  5. Reille, M., Gamisans, J., Andrieu-Ponel, V., De Beaulieu, J. L. (1999). The Holocene at Lac de Creno, Corsica, France: a key site for the whole island. New Phytologist, 141(2), 291-307. DOI: 10.1046/j.1469-8137.1999.00343.x
  6. Dinies, M., Schimmel, L., Hoelzmann, P., Kröpelin, S., Darius, F., Neef, R. (2021). Holocene high-altitude vegetation dynamics on Emi Koussi, Tibesti mountains (Chad, central Sahara). In: Runge, J., Gosling, WD, Lézine, A.-M., Scott, L., (Eds). Quaternary Vegetation Dynamics — The African Pollen Database, 1st ed. CRC Press, 27-50. DOI: 10.1201/9781003162766
  7. "Erica arborea L." Australian Plant Name Index (APNI), IBIS database. Centre for Plant Biodiversity Research, Australian Government.
  8. "AGM Plants - Ornamental" (PDF). Royal Horticultural Society. July 2017. p. 35. Retrieved 6 February 2018.
  9. "RHS Plant Selector - Erica arborea 'Estrella Gold'" . Retrieved 7 June 2020.
  10. "RHS Plant Selector - Erica arborea var. alpina" . Retrieved 7 June 2020.
  11. "RHS Plant Selector - Erica arborea var. alpina f. aureifolia 'Albert's Gold'" . Retrieved 7 June 2020.
  12. "Erica × veitchii 'Gold Tips'". RHS. Retrieved 7 June 2020.