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

They belong to the heath family and help to feed the world.

From See America First by Hiestand, Orville O.

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

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

Many flowering and fruit-bearing shrubs of the heath family add to the beauty of the mountainous districts, rhododendron and kalmia often forming impenetrable thickets.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Slice 3 "Apollodorus" to "Aral" by Various