Alternative names: Not Applicable

Description:
Often partially hairy shrubs or rarely trees; leaves simple, either small, often linear, often with recurved margins and evergreen, or larger, leathery and often deciduous, alternate, opposite or whorled, exstipulate.

Flowers bisexual, usually regular, solitary in various types of usually racemose inflorescence, usually with 2 or 3 bracteoles, pedicellate; sepals 4 or 5, often fused, persistent; petals 4 or 5, fused, contorted or imbricate; stamens usually twice as many as petals, 2-celled, dehiscing by pores or longitudinally, sometimes attached to the corolla and with the inner whorl opposite the petals; anthers often with appendages; nectar-producing disk usually present; ovary usually superior, usually 4- or 5-celled, with 1 to many axile ovules in each cell; style simple, usually capitate.

Fruit a capsule, drupe or berry; seeds endospermous.

Distribution:  About 50 genera and 1,350 species, almost cosmopolitan. Important horticultural genera include Rhododendron L. (This treatment based in part on Webb (1972) Flora Europaea 3:5-13.)

Biology: No text

Key to Genera:

1. Leaves alternate, at least 15 mm broad	ARBUTUS 1.
1. Leaves whorled, less than 1 mm broad	ERICA 2.

Author: Prepared by J.P. Jessop