Erica baccans
Common names
berry heath
Biostatus
Exotic
Category
Vascular
Structural class
Trees & Shrubs - Dicotyledons
Flower colours
Red/Pink
Detailed description
Glabrous shrub up to about 2 m tall. Leaves up to 9 mm long. Small pink bell-shaped flowers are held in bunches on the ends of stems. Corolla with 4 blunt ridges and depressions between them. Seed capsule to about 5 mm.
Similar taxa
The ridges and depressions of the carolla allow it to be distinguished from other Erica species in New Zealand.
Habitat
Terrestrial.
Conservation status
Not applicable
Detailed taxonomy
Family
Ericaceae
Ecology
Flowering
August, September, October, November, December
Year naturalised
1937
Origin
S.W. Cape area, South Africa
Reason for introduction
Ornamental
Tolerances
Requires low to medium soil fertility (Atkinson 1997).
Life cycle and dispersal
Many thousands of seeds produced. Dispersed by gravity and humans (Atkinson 1997).
Other information
Etymology
erica: From the Greek ereika ‘heath’ or ‘heather’
Environmental Weed (2024)
This plant is named in a list of 386 environmental weeds in New Zealand 2024 prepared by DOC. 759 candidate species were considered for inclusion on this new comprehensive list of environmental weeds in New Zealand. The species considered were drawn from published lists of weed species, lists of plants that must be reported or managed by law if observed, existing national and regional programmes and agreements for pest management, and species already managed by the Department of Conservation (DOC). Candidate species were then assessed to see if they were fully naturalised and whether they have more than minor impacts in natural ecosystems. Read the full report here.
NVS code
The National Vegetation Survey (NVS) Databank is a physical archive and electronic databank containing records of over 94,000 vegetation survey plots - including data from over 19,000 permanent plots. NVS maintains a standard set of species code abbreviations that correspond to standard scientific plant names from the Ngä Tipu o Aotearoa - New Zealand Plants database.
ERIBAC