Common Name: HEATH FAMILY
Habit: Perennial herb, shrub, tree. Stem: bark often peeling distinctively. Leaf: simple or 0, generally cauline, alternate, opposite (whorled), evergreen or deciduous, often leathery, petioled or not; stipules 0. Inflorescence: raceme, panicle, cyme, or flowers 1, terminal or axillary, generally bracted; pedicel often with 2 bractlets. Flower: generally bisexual, generally radial, bell-shaped, cylindric, or urn-shaped; sepals generally (0)4--5, generally free; petals generally (0)4--5, free or fused; stamens (2--5)8--10, free, filaments rarely appendaged, anthers dehiscing by pores or slits, awns 0 or 2(4), seemingly abaxial, reduced or elongate, generally curved; nectary generally present at ovary base, generally disk-like; ovary superior or inferior, chambers generally 1--5, placentas axile or parietal, ovules 1--many per chamber, style 1, stigma head- to funnel-like or lobed. Fruit: capsule, drupe, berry. Seed: generally many, winged or not.
Genera In Family: +- 100 genera, 3000 species: generally worldwide except deserts; some cultivated, especially Arbutus, Arctostaphylos, Rhododendron, Vaccinium. Note: Monophyletic only if Empetraceae included, as treated here. Ledum included in Rhododendron. Non-green plants obtain nutrition from green plants through fungal intermediates.
eFlora Treatment Author: Gary D. Wallace, except as noted
Scientific Editor: Gary D. Wallace, Thomas J. Rosatti, Bruce G. Baldwin.

Habit: Shrub to tree, glabrous, hairy, and/or with glandular scale-like hairs. Stem: prostrate to erect, bark thin, sometimes peeling or shredding. Leaf: alternate, evergreen or deciduous, ovate to obovate to elliptic, margin entire, flat to rolled under. Inflorescence: raceme, 1--many-flowered, bracts green to red-brown. Flower: sepals, petals generally 5, corolla radial to bilateral, 1--5 cm, petals free to +- fused, spots or blotch present or 0; anther awns 0; ovary superior. Fruit: capsule, septicidal, dehiscing base to tip or tip to base, placentas axile. Seed: many, fusiform, +- flat to not, wings and/or tails present or 0.
Etymology: (Greek: rose tree)
eFlora Treatment Author: Kathleen A. Kron & Walter S. Judd
Unabridged Reference: Chamberlain 1982. Notes Roy. Bot. Gard. Edinburgh 39:209--486; Cullen 1980 Notes Roy. Bot. Gard. Edinburgh 39:1--207