ER'ICATEIE (Neo-Lat., from Gk. crike, heath). An order of dicotyledonous plants, the heath family, which consists chiefly of small shrubs, but which contains some trees. The leaves are alternate, opposite, or in whorls, entire, destitute of stipules, often small, in some genera mostly evergreen and rigid. The flowers are sometimes solitary in the arils of the leaves, sometimes grouped in different modes of inflores cence, and are often of great beauty, in which respect no order of plants excels this. The calyx is four or five parted, and the corolla, which is often bell-shaped, has four or five lobes. The stamens are twice as many as the corolla lobes, and the anthers in most genera open by small pores at the summit. Ovary four to five celled, and one to many seeded. The fruit is a capsule or a berry. About 50 genera and 1300 species of this order are known, of which the greater number are natives of South Africa, which region particular ly abounds in the genus Erica and its allies, the true heaths. Sonic of them are also found at the utmost limits of northern vegetation. They are rare within the tropics, and occur only at considerable elevations. Few species are found in .Australia. Many of the Ericaeex are social plants, and a single species sometimes covers a great tract, in which it constitutes the principal vegetation. This is most strikingly exemplified in the heaths of Europe and the north of Asia. Medicinal properties exist in some of the Erica ce:r, as the bearberry. The trailing arbutus of
North America (Epigcca repens), also called ground-laurel and mayflower, is a general favor ite. Npreotie and poisonous qualities are of not infrequent occurrence. The berries of some species are edible. The Rhododendrem have by sonic been regarded as a distinct. order, but are generally considered a suborder of Ericacca., which contains the genera Ithododendron,Kahnia, Ledum, eta. The larger leaves and flowers, and generally also the larger plants of the order, be long to this suborder; which, however, contains also many small shrubs of subarctic and elevated mountainous regions. By Bentham and Hooker the green-leaved species of Pyrol•cat• are indurat ed in the order, and Gray includes all of the Pyrolace:c as a suborder of Erieaera.a.. Bentham and 'looker also remove the Vaccinioille:c and make an independent order of them. According to Engler, the chief divisions and genera of Eri ence:e are Rhododendroidew, represented by Rho dodendron, Leduni, liahuia (qq.v.), and Phyl lodoce; Arbutoidele, which embraces Andromeda, Gaultheria, Arbutus (qq.v.), Cassiope, Epipea, Arctostaphylus; Vaceinioidea•„ with l'accinium, Gaylussacia (qq.v.), Agapetes, Alacleanea, and Thibaudia; and Ericoide:e, of which Erica, Cal tuna, Eremia, and Salaxis are the principal genera. See AZALEA.