Erica cinerea is a well branched, often near-prostrate dwarf shrub or undershrub (Bannister 1965, Clapham et al. 1987). It attains up to c.80cm in height, with numerous ascending branched stems that root at the base and abundant auxiliary shoots. The leaves are glabrous and dark green, usually with three in a whorl. The short-stalked flowers are crimson purple and the plant is either self or cross-pollinated. Pollination may perhaps also occur through lepidoptera or by small bees. A mature plant can disperse up to half a million seeds per square metre each season which then lay in the upper layers of the soil, but the level of seedling and seed mortality is high (Webb, 1981). It may assume an erect, weak, straggly form when growing in competition with Calluna, otherwise it is rounded or elongated.