heath family

American  

noun

1. the plant family Ericaceae, characterized by evergreen or deciduous shrubs, trees, and woody plants growing in acid soil and having simple leaves, often showy flowers either solitary or in clusters, and fruit in the form of a berry or capsule, and including the azalea, blueberry, cranberry, heather, madrone, mountain laurel, rhododendron, and trailing arbutus.

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Example Sentences

The gardens are home to an important collection of plants in the heath family, including native and nonnative rhododendrons and azaleas, along with blueberries, mountain laurel and others, some of which are rare.

From Washington Post • Mar. 10, 2022

Still another member of this heath family, to which the Mountain Laurel and Rhododendron belong, is the Little Shin Leaf, with its Lily-of-the-Valley-like flowers.

From Woodcraft or, How a Patrol Leader Made Good by Douglas, Alan

This volatile oil is obtained from the winter-green, an American shrub of the heath family, by distillation.

From The Art of Perfumery And Methods of Obtaining the Odors of Plants by Piesse, George William Septimus

The heath family, of about sixty-seven genera, distributed over the temperate and tropical countries of the earth, has twenty-one genera in the United States, seven of which have tree representatives.

From Trees Worth Knowing by Rogers, Julia Ellen

Andromeda, an-drom′e-da, n. a genus of shrubs of the heath family: the name of a northern constellation.

From Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary (part 1 of 4: A-D) by Various