Information on St Dabeoc's Heath

Common Name: St Dabeoc's Heath
Scientific Name: Daboecia cantabrica
Irish Name: Fraoch na haon choise
Family Group: Ericaceae
Distribution: View Map (Courtesy of the BSBI)
Flowering Period


Click for list of all flowering by month
St Dabeoc's Heath could sometimes be confused with:

Heather, Bell, Heath, Cross-leaved,

This small, evergreen undershrub is generally not found away from the west of Ireland.  It grows on dry heaths, acid soils and rocky moors where it blooms from May to October. Reaching 60cm tall, it bears loose, terminal racemes of pink-purple flowers (10-14mm long) which are bell-shaped narrowing with 4 lips turning back slightly.  Each flower has a bract.  The narrow, alternate leaves are dark green above with white felty undersides and the margins of these leaves are rolled back.  This is a native plant and it belongs to the family Ericaceae.  

I first found this beautiful plant growing beside a small waterfall at Cleggan, Co Galway in 1973 and I photographed it there in 2006 on a very wet and windy day.  

Heath, St Dabeoc's
Heath, St Dabeoc's

One of the Lusitanian species of plants, this plant was mentioned in a *letter from nineteenth century botanist, J D Hooker to Charles Darwin in July 1866 when he noted the presence of St Dabeoc's Heath in the Azores whilst it was absent in Madeira and the Canaries.  He also stated that it only occurred elsewhere in the west of Ireland and in the Pyrenean region.

*Burkhardt, Frederick, et al., eds. 2004. The Correspondence of Charles Darwin. Vol. 14. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (p. 263).