Erica x gaudificans : Edewecht heath

Bushy shrub to 0.5m tall. Leaves bright green, scattered, to 6.5mm long. Flowers terminal clusters of 8–20; calyx cup-shaped, 4-lobed, pale green; corolla campanulate or funnel-shaped or conical, white or pink; stamens 8, included, variously malformed; anthers degenerate, without awns; pollen observed.

Blooms mainly in summer.

An artificial hybrid, created by Kurt Kramer (Edewecht, Germany), from the Eurasian species Erica spiculifolia (Balkan heath) and the African (Cape) species Erica bergiana. Hardy and long-blooming (April to November).

Two cultivars have been named. Uncommon in cultivation in Britain and Ireland, yet the clones both thrive in gardens in the northwestern USA and western Canada.

‘Edewecht Belle’

Corolla pink (H9), campanulate (bell-shaped) to conical so broadening gradually towards lobes (not constricted in middle); IV-XI; leaves with hairs along the margins and on the under-rolled sides; terminal hair usually with gland at tip; bushy, vigorous shrub; when not pruned to 0.5m tall. Like ‘Edewecht Blush‘, but distinguished most easily by the dark red pedicels being noticeably pubescent with minute, straight hairs (without glands) mixed with shorter, gland-tipped hairs.

The cultivar names are derived from Edewecht, the name of the town in northern Germany where Kurt Kramer lives and where he raised these seedlings.

‘Edewecht Blush’

Flowers colourless but appearing pink (“blushing”) when young due to colour of immature stamens inside; flower-stalks usually entirely without hairs; IV-XI; foliage bright green; leaves scattered, almost spirally arranged or in pairs or in “disarticulated” whorls of 3 or 4; linear, with parallel sides, to 6.5mm long, 0.5mm wide; sulcate; with a few, scattered microscopic hairs on the margins; apex pointed, with spicules (microscopic hairs); bushy, vigorous shrub, to 0.5m tall.

The cultivar names are derived from Edewecht, the name of the town in northern Germany where Kurt Kramer lives and where he raised these seedlings.