Calluna vulgaris

Scotch heather is a small evergreen shrub/ground cover in the heath or Ericaceae family that is native primarily to moors, dunes and bogs in northern and western Europe to Siberia, Turkey and Morocco.

• As a shrub/ground cover, it is 10–60 cm high, with a spread of 60 cm, upright branching, dense, leafy ascending branches forming thick mats.
• Leaves are evergreen, tiny, scale-like, opposite, 1–3 mm long, in overlapping pairs appear on slender stems rising on average to 60 cm tall. Leaves turn bronze in the fall.
• Flowers are rosy to purplish pink, urn-shaped, 6 mm long. The flowers of Calluna are distinguished from those of Erica (heath) by possessing a colored calyx longer than the corolla, which persists after flowering.
• The Royal Horticultural Society lists over 800 cultivars of this species.