Search the Dictionary

A genus of shrubby plants, including the heaths, many of them producing beautiful flowers.

Belonging to the Heath family, or resembling plants of that family; consisting of heats.

A genus of ericaceous flowering plants of northern climates, of which the original species was found growing on a rock surrounded by water.

The berry of several species of Vaccinium, and ericaceous genus, differing from the American huckleberries in containing numerous minute seeds instead of ten nutlets. The commonest species are V. Pennsylvanicum and V. vacillans. V. corymbosum is the tall blueberry.

A glucoside found in the bearberry (and others of the Ericaceæ), and extracted as a bitter, yellow, amorphous mass.

A genus of ericaceous shrubs with evergreen foliage, and, often, edible berries. It includes the American winter-green (Gaultheria procumbens), and the larger-fruited salal of Northwestern America (Gaultheria Shallon).

A low shrub (Erica, or Calluna, vulgaris), with minute evergreen leaves, and handsome clusters of pink flowers. It is used in Great Britain for brooms, thatch, beds for the poor, and for heating ovens. It is also called heather, and ling.

ather bell (Bot.), one of the pretty subglobose flowers of two European kinds of heather (Erica Tetralix, and E. cinerea).

A small American ericaceous shrub (Kalmia angustifolia); -- called also calfkill, sheepkill, sheep laurel, etc. It is supposed to poison sheep and other animals that eat it at times when the snow is deep and they cannot find other food.

An ericaceous shrub (Leucothoë acuminata) of the southern United States, from the wood of which pipe bowls are made.

The edible fruit of the Gaultheria Shallon, an ericaceous shrub found from California northwards. The berries are about the size of a common grape and of a dark purple color.

plate for rails. Knight. Shin bone (Anat.), the tibia. -- Shin leaf (Bot.), a perennial ericaceous herb (Pyrola elliptica) with a cluster of radical leaves and a raceme of greenish white flowers.

ned from the juice of Rumex Acetosella, or Rumex Axetosa. -- Sorrel tree (Bot.), a small ericaceous tree (Oxydendrum arboreum) whose leaves resemble those of the peach and have a sour taste. It is common along the Alleghanies. Called also sourwood. -- Wood sorrel (Bot.), any plant of the genus Oxalis.…

An evergreen shrub of the genus Erica (E. passerina).

A genus of ericaceous shrubs including the various kinds of blueberries and the true cranberries.