Erica carnea

It is a small shrub up to 30 cm tall with needle like evergreen leaves mostly in whorls of four.

The flowers form dense one sided racemes; calyx and corolla are bright pink and the brown red anthers stick out of the urn shaped corolla.

Info Flora gives the flowering period of winter heath in Switzerland as March to June, occasionally starting in January.

In the Alps the shrubs flower first on the steepest south facing slopes where snow melts earliest, turning into pink clouds of flowers in late winter.

In Switzerland it grows in pine forests and on dry slopes on limestone, from the hill zone to the subalpine zone, in the Alps, near the Alps and in the Jura.

Info Flora lists the species as indigenous to Switzerland and not threatened nationally, but vulnerable in the Swiss Midlands.

The Zurich guide names pine forests, bilberry spruce forests, larch forest, rock ledges, dry slopes and dwarf shrub heaths on limestone as its habitats, and forest succession as the main threat.

The Canton of Zurich forest biodiversity guide records strong flower visitation by bees in spring.

The University of Potsdam botanical garden notes that mass stands of winter heath in the Alps are attractive to honey bees and that the plant grows mainly on calcareous ground.

The Bavarian institute LWG lists winter heath, with alder, among woody plants for the early spring bee forage phase from mid February to the end of March.

In the garden it accepts almost any soil but dislikes heavy fertilising, according to the Potsdam botanical garden.

The UK Royal Horticultural Society lists hardy heath species (Erica) in every seasonal section of its Plants for Pollinators garden plant list.