Erica parviflora L.

Horticultural & Botanical History

‘This is a neat little plant in the winter season, during which time it continues in blossom for three or four months.’  [LBC no.167/1817].  Introduced to Europe in 1790.  [PD]. 

History at Camden Park

Listed in the 1843, 1845 and 1850 catalogues.  See Erica nudiflora L. and Erica bauera Andr.  Marked as grown at Camden in the 1836 Loddiges’ catalogue held at Camden Park [CPA] and probably obtained from Loddiges’ nursery. 

Notes

A number of heaths have been described under the name Erica pubescens.  Most of these, including those of Curtis and Andrews, are now generally considered to be mere forms of the original E. pubescens of Linnaeus.  ‘There are two Heaths very generally cultivated in the nurseries about town, which have been regarded as varieties of each other and called by wrong and inexpressive names; to us they appear, on an accurate examination, to be distinct species: the better to elucidate them, we have figured and described them both in the same number, regarding the smaller one as the pubescens of Linnaeus, its hairiness being of the slighter kind, the other as a distinct species, under the name of hirtiflora [Curt.], from the superior roughness of the hairs on its blossoms; the Linnaean description will indeed apply to either.’  [BM t.480/1800]. 

Erica pubescens Sieber ex Benth. (1838) = Erica mollis Andr.