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cross-leaved heath


Значение термина cross-leaved heath в knolik


cross-leaved heath - CROSS-LEAVED HEATH (Erica tetralix)
cross-leaved heath - The Heath - the rosy carpet of the moor, the radiant garment of the mountain - seems to suggest legend and story, and yet legend and story in connection with it are singularly lacking. Fairies and elves should surely be closely allied with it, and yet, barring a sort of superstitious feeling that there is such a relationship, no tangible foundation for it can be found in fairy-lore. That the feeling should be so strong and the basis for it so slight is rather remarkable. And yet, perhaps, the explanation may be found in the fact that the romance of the Heath is far older than legend and fairy tale, and lies in eras which even tradition cannot reach. For the Sherlock Holmes among the botanists, deducing much from little evidence, aided and abetted, too, by the geologist on this occasion, says that the Heath is the flower of a lost continent, a continent whose existence is highly mythological. Plato spoke of this land as Atlantis, other chroniclers refer to it as Lyonesse, and it was supposed to have lain out in the Atlantic, joining Ireland, the Scilly Isles, Spain and the Azores. Here the Heath was a native, and from thence it spread somewhat eastward. Then came a great subsidence - of the actual catastrophe tradition can tell nothing - and only a patch of land here and there remained above the waters, but the Heath was left on all, and certain rare species found only in Cornwall, Ireland and Spain speak of the vanished land-links. All the species - and there are four hundred of them - still belong to the region of the Atlantic, and are known only on the western part of Europe (though they have run round the coast of the Mediterranean) and South West Africa. They have never travelled to the continents of Asia and America, except when directly taken by man. In Australia they are also unknown as indigenous.

In Great Britain only five out of these four hundred can claim this country as a native home, and of these, three keep strictly to very limited areas in Cornwall and Ireland. The remaining two, namely, the Scotch Heath (Erica cinerea) and the Cross-leaved Heath (Erica tetralix), the subject of our picture, alone range over Britain. (The common heather or ling, whose tiny flowers are arranged in long spikes, was once included among the Heaths, but now is considered a separate genus.) The Scotch heath and the Cross-leaved Heath have flowers that are alike in structure, though in the first-named they are a reddish-purple and are arranged in long handsome spikes; in the second-named they are pinker, somewhat larger, and gathered into clusters at the top of the stalks. In both cases they are much larger than the flowers of the ling. The Cross-leaved Heath is so called because the leaves, grouped in fours, form a series of crosses all down the stems. The leaf-edges turn downwards, and are fringed with tiny hairs; sometimes these hairs carry glands, and indeed, the whole plant is covered with a soft down. Although each leaf is very small it is still further subdivided into many minute segments.

The flower is a very interesting example of a piece of floral mechanism and well worth special attention. The rosy-pink corolla, bell-like, hangs mouth downwards; it bulges somewhat round the centre, but draws together at the mouth and finishes off with four little teeth which speak of the four petals that have gone to its making. The clapper' of this flower bell is represented by the ovary column, whose sticky end almost closes the mouth of the bell. Round this mute clapper hang eight stamens, their filaments following the curving lines of the corolla, and the peculiarity of their heads at once arrests our attention, for each has two long horns - one from each of its pollen boxes - and these stretch upwards and outwards into the bell. Hence, about a third of the way up from the mouth, then; is a radiating circle of sixteen horns almost blocking the bell. Again, each pollen box of the sixteen has an oval opening on its outside near the tip - that is, at the end nearest the bell-mouth - but since all the heads are pressed together in a circle the pollen cannot possibly fall out through any of them. Up at the top of the bell, honey is manufactured and stored in glands. Now heather-honey is proverbial, and many bee-keepers who live near moors make a special feature of it. It has a peculiar flavour of its own, and is somewhat dark in colour, but whether or no it is preferred by many honey-eaters, it is certainly particularly appreciated by bee honey-drinkers. On sunny autumn days a moor will seem alive with the buzzing of both wild and hive bees as they fly from flower to flower. Now follow the movements of one of these bees as it settles on a spray. There is no alighting platform provided by each flower, as there is in the mimulus, or in the viper's bugloss, but no matter, the neighbouring clustering blossoms do just as well, and, clinging to them, it probes up into the bell. And the first thing that happens is that it knocks its head on the sticky end of the " clapper " at the mouth, so at once some of the pollen dust on its head from the previous flower is rubbed off and sticks on to the " clapper." Then it pushes its proboscis up the bell to find the yielding barricade of the sixteen horns, but easily thrusts them aside and gains the honey quarter. This is the moment predestined by the plant, for directly a horn is pushed the anthers (or pollen boxes) are disturbed, the ring is broken, and the little openings are left exposed. Out pours the pollen, for it had only been kept in by the wall of the adjacent anther, and the head of the bee is once more dust-coated. Meanwhile the honey has been carefully stored away by the bee in what Maeterlinck calls its "Community stomach," and it now backs out and passes on to another flower. It has attained its end, the flower has done the same, both are satisfied.

As a point of minor interest, it may be noticed that the pollen grains in the Heath are united together in fours, known as tetrads. Kerner suggests that after two days, whether the flower has been fertilised or not, the stigma withers and can no longer receive pollen; the stamens begin quickly to grow and push their anthers outside the flower. Every movement of the wind now will cause the pollen to fall, and the grains will be borne on the wings of the wind to other expectant flowers. Thus the plant makes a bid for the assistance of both insects and wind. The day of the flower is now over, but the pink corolla, merely dries as it hangs, retaining much of its colour. The fruit is a dry little capsule containing several seeds, which eventually escape by four openings that appear in its walls.

Kerner points out that the heaths are plants that require a considerable amount of organic matter in the soil if they are to flourish - bare rock has no attraction for them - and, further, that their own roots unaided do not supply them with the necessary food from the rich soil. An intermediary is required, and this is found in certain fungi which attach themselves to the roots and do the work of absorption for them, but in return they receive back elaborated substances which have been worked up in the leaves out of these same simple salts handed on by the fungi. It is a case of partnership for the mutual benefit of both plant and fungus.

Tradition says that a wonderful heather beer was made in olden days by the Picts, who jealously guarded the secret of its making. When the whole tribe was practically exterminated by a certain Kenneth the Conqueror, a father and son were the only survivors, but were taken prisoners. Kenneth promised them their lives if they would tell him the secret of the beer, which he greatly loved. They refused, and he then had the son put to death before his father's eyes. The father was still obdurate, but Kenneth was so struck by the old man's bravery that he spared his life, though the secret was never revealed.

The Latin name Erica is said by some to be derived from a Greek word signifying heath or heather; others assert that it is from a word meaning " to break," because it was used in old medicine to break up stone in the bladder.

In the reign of William and Mary it was made a crime to set fire, between Candlemas and Midsummer, to any "grigg," or heath on a common, and whipping and imprisonment were the penalties ordained for disobedience.

The family of the Evicaceæ is a large one; among its members may be counted the rhododendron, azalea, bilberry, cranberry, arbutus, wintergreen, and the saprophyte known as monotropa or yellow-bird's nest.

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