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b. The ordinary name for undershrubs of the Linnæan genus Erīca, of which the common native species are E. (now Calluna) vulgaris, common heath, heather, or ling, E. cinerea fine-leaved heath (the ‘common heath’ of some parts), and E. tetralix cross-leaved heath. By botanical writers sometimes limited to the modern genus Erica, sometimes extended to other cognate genera of Ericaceæ.The name heath seems native to the south and middle of England: see heather n. Since the ‘common heath’ is now separated from the genus Erica, botanical writers sometimes distinguish it from the ‘true heaths’ by its northern names ling n.² and heather n.; but locally all three names include all the native species. Of early botanical writers, Turner mentions only E. vulgaris, Lyte (transl. Dodoens), E. vulgaris and tetralix, distinguished as ‘long heath’ and ‘smal heath’.

a. The Scottish name, now in general use, for the native species of the Linnæan genus Erica, called in the north of England, ling n.²; especially E. (now Calluna) vulgaris, common heather, and E. cinerea, fine-leaved heath or lesser bell-heather.Some recent botanical writers have essayed to limit the originally local names heath, ling, heather, to different species; but each of these names is, in its own locality, applied to all the species there found, and pre-eminently to that locally most abundant. On the Yorkshire and Scottish moors, the most abundant is E. vulgaris, which is therefore the ‘common ling’ of the one, the ‘common heather’ of the other. But in other localities, esp. in the south-west, E. cinerea is the prevalent species, and is there the ‘common heath’. Scottish distinctions are dog-heather, he-heather ( E. vulgaris), carlin heather, she-heather ( E. cinerea).