The same order includes the Sheep's-bit (_Jasione montana_), also known as the Sheep's Scabious. It certainly resembles a Scabious in general appearance (see Fig. 5 of Plate VI), with its dense clusters of blue or deep lilac flowers, but may be readily distinguished from it by the united anthers of its five stamens, and by the absence of the involucel that surrounds the individual flowers of the Scabious flower-head. The dense cluster of flowers, surrounded by a whorl of many ovate bracts, might also be mistaken for that of a Composite at first sight; but here again we find exclusive distinguishing features, for the flowers of the cluster are not sessile on a common receptacle; and the fruits, instead of being one-seeded achenes, are two-chambered capsules. The plant is from six to twelve inches high; and its leaves are oblong or very narrow, wavy, blunt, and hairy. The flower-heads are hemispherical, about half an inch in diameter. Both calyx and corolla have five narrow, spreading lobes. The plant is common on heaths, and flowers from June to September. [Illustration: THE CROSS-LEAVED HEATH.] We now come to those interesting plants known collectively as Heaths, and which add so much beauty to our heaths and moors. They belong to the order _Ericaceæ_, and are all readily distinguished by their bushy appearance, hard woody stems, and small, simple leaves arranged in pairs or whorls. The flowers, too, are very characteristic, each one having an inferior calyx of four sepals; a bell-shaped or pitcher-shaped, persistent corolla, with five lobes; eight stamens free from the corolla; and a four-chambered ovary that ripens to a capsule. The Cross-leaved Heath (_Erica Tetralix_) is common all over Britain, especially so in the West. It is a wiry little shrub, from a foot to eighteen inches high, much branched at the base. Its leaves are short, narrow, downy above, fringed with stiff hairs, and arranged in whorls of four, each whorl forming a cross. The drooping flowers, which appear during July and August, are usually rose-coloured, occasionally white, and are arranged in close, terminal, one-sided clusters. The Ciliated Heath (_Erica ciliaris_), perhaps the most beautiful of the British species, is found only in the West of England, but is really abundant on some of the Devon and Cornwall moorlands. It is of a somewhat straggling nature, and its ovate leaves, which are downy above, and fringed with stiff hairs, are in whorls of three or four. The flowers are sometimes nearly half an inch long, of a bright rose or crimson colour, and are arranged in broken, one-sided racemes. The corolla is pitcher-shaped, with four lobes round the narrow mouth. The plant reaches a length of from twelve to eighteen inches, and flowers from June to September. [Illustration: THE BELL HEATHER OR FINE-LEAVED HEATH.]