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Western Isles Wildflowers

Western Isles wildflowers is a collection of information about our Hebridean wildflowers including identification hints, traditional herbal uses and general plant lore.

 

Purple Heather

Erica cinerea

Gaelic name: Biadh na Circe-fraoich, Fraoch a' Bhadain,

Purple Heather is also known as fine-leaved heath and bell heather.

We get 3 species of heather in the Western Isles. The purple heather is the first to flower (starts flowering in mid-June) it grows on dry moorland and rocks throughout the islands. The flowers are very deep pink to purple and bell-like.

Cross-leaved heath prefers the wetter areas, it grows on damp moorland and in bogs, alongside the bog asphodel. Cross-leaved heath is pale pink with bell-like flowers and is the rarer of the species.

Later in the year the ling comes into flower and dominates the moorland landscape, flowering on heath and moor throughout the isles. Ling has tiny lilac flowers which are not bell-like.

Purple heather is a native plant of the Western Isles.

Photography© Suzanne Harris
Outer Hebrides (Western Isles)

Left photograph August 2005
Right photograph 12th June 2007