Phyllodoce caerulea(L.) Bab.

blue mountainheath

WFO wfo-0000395875 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Phyllodoce caerulea, photographed by Aleksei Baushev
fig. a Aleksei Baushev, CC BY 4.0 / 2021-09-08 / obs. 158422879
Phyllodoce caerulea, photographed by Jens-Christian Svenning
fig. b Jens-Christian Svenning, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 146397846
Phyllodoce caerulea, photographed by Jens-Christian Svenning
fig. c Jens-Christian Svenning, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 146174828
Phyllodoce caerulea, photographed by Jens-Christian Svenning
fig. d Jens-Christian Svenning, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 145911148
Phyllodoce caerulea, photographed by Jens-Christian Svenning
fig. e Jens-Christian Svenning, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 145785350
Phyllodoce caerulea, photographed by Jens-Christian Svenning
fig. f Jens-Christian Svenning, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 145449082
Phyllodoce caerulea, photographed by Jens-Christian Svenning
fig. g Jens-Christian Svenning, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 145220276
Phyllodoce caerulea, photographed by Jens-Christian Svenning
fig. h Jens-Christian Svenning, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 144974387

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Native range 39 botanical countries

Regions where Phyllodoce caerulea is native: Amur, Buryatiya, Chita, Inner Mongolia, Irkutsk, Japan, Kamchatka, Khabarovsk, Korea, Krasnoyarsk, Kuril Is., Magadan, Manchuria, Sakhalin, Tuva, West Siberia, Xinjiang, Yakutiya, Finland, France, Great Britain, Iceland, North European Russia, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Alaska, Aleutian Is., Greenland, Labrador, Maine, Manitoba, New Hampshire, Newfoundland, Northwest Territories, Nova Scotia, Nunavut, Ontario, Québec AmurBuryatiyaChitaInner MongoliaIrkutskJapanKamchatkaKhabarovskKrasnoyarskMagadanManchuriaSakhalinTuvaWest SiberiaXinjiangYakutiyaFinlandFranceIcelandNorth European RussiaNorwaySpainSwedenAlaskaGreenlandLabradorMaineManitobaNew HampshireNewfoundlandNorthwest TerritoriesNova ScotiaNunavutOntarioQuébec Korea
Native distribution of Phyllodoce caerulea, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows. Regions too small to draw at this scale are marked with a dot.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Amur AMU ASIA-TEMPERATE
Buryatiya BRY
Chita CTA
Inner Mongolia CHI
Irkutsk IRK
Japan JAP
Kamchatka KAM
Khabarovsk KHA
Korea KOR
Krasnoyarsk KRA
Kuril Is. KUR
Magadan MAG
Manchuria CHM
Sakhalin SAK
Tuva TVA
West Siberia WSB
Xinjiang CHX
Yakutiya YAK
Alaska ASK NORTHERN AMERICA
Aleutian Is. ALU
Greenland GNL
Labrador LAB
Maine MAI
Manitoba MAN
New Hampshire NWH
Newfoundland NFL
Northwest Territories NWT
Nova Scotia NSC
Nunavut NUN
Ontario ONT
Québec QUE
Finland FIN EUROPE
France FRA
Great Britain GRB
Iceland ICE
North European Russia RUN
Norway NOR
Spain SPA
Sweden SWE

Not drawn on the map: Kuril Is., Great Britain, Aleutian Is.. We hold no public-domain boundary for these regions, so they are listed rather than guessed at.

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Flowering 236 in flower of 275 examined

Peak flowering in Jul. Each bar is the share of Phyllodoce caerulea observations in which someone actually recorded the reproductive state and found the plant in flower, not the raw number of flowering records. That distinction matters: people observe plants far more in spring than in winter, so a bare count of flowering records partly measures when people go outside. Dividing by the number examined removes that. 236 of 275 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 8 months have fewer than 5 examined observations, so no proportion is drawn for them. This is still a global aggregate and not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres. Where a species has fewer than 30 flowering records we do not draw this chart at all. Computed from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Also published as 13 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Andromeda caerulea L.
  • Andromeda daboecia Pall.
  • Andromeda taxifolia (Salisb.) Pall.
  • Bryanthus caeruleus (L.) Dippel
  • Bryanthus taxifolius (Salisb.) A.Gray
  • Erica arctica Waitz
  • Erica coerulea Willd.
  • Erica daboecia Georgi
  • Menziesia coerulea (L.) Sw.
  • Menziesia taxifolia (Salisb.) J.W.Robbins ex Alph.Wood
  • Phyllodoce caerulea f. yesoensis (Koidz.) Nakai
  • Phyllodoce caerulea var. yesoensis Koidz.
  • Phyllodoce taxifolia Salisb.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
  4. Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.