For a woody perennial with limited seasonal availability, heather is surprisingly familiar as a cut flower. Not exactly a staple, it is nonetheless part of our common vocabulary of floral design, especially at Valentine's Day.
True, one type of heather or another may be found blooming somewhere all year long, but suppliers on the cut-flower market are reliable only from December through April. Different types of heather may have even more limited availability.
All true heathers belong to the Ericaceae family and are thus related to cranberries and blueberries, azalea and rhododendron. Most of the species we know as cut flowers are in the genus Erica. Other popular heathers include French heather (E. hyernalis, often tipped with white), rosy red or pink E. melanthera and (shorter in length, but perhapse the most popular of these) E. persoluta.
Another species, Calluna vulgaris (Scotch heather), was formerly classified with Erica but is now placed in its own genus. If you look closely at the tiny individual flowers of Calluna you will see that they are more tube-shaped than is typical of Erica species. Often substituted for heather are the Austrailian natives leptospermum (in the Myrtaceae family) and boronia (Rutaceae).
True heather, especially Calluna vulgaris, grows on open, high moorlands all over Europe. The evergreen branches were traditionally used to make brooms. The heather we buy on the cut-flower market, however, is most often grown in California. It comes in grower-size bunches that vary by grower and seasonal abundance.
For more information on heather or to purchase beautiful floral arrangements please check out this
Skip's Florist
