Enter your ZIP to see whether this is legal to plant in your state, and whether it survives your winter.
Calluna vulgaris is anchored by Valette 1990, the selected mediterranean forest-species lineage. Same-form alternatives are cited under related plants, but they do not change the avoid direction in the evidence table.
One ecological invasive report remains a separate context. Range evidence locates the material attached to vulgaris, while the evidence table retains the accepted source row. This arrangement keeps the citation from Valette, computed direction, invasive report, and alternative set within the heather record rather than making the genus a substitute for this named vulgaris account. This boundary remains specific to the species.
British Columbia; Catalonia, Spain; Global; Mediterranean France / Provence; eastern US
Maintenance
2. Why this plant is relevant here
State distribution
Documented in CT, DC, DE, MA, MD, ME, MI, NH, NJ, NY, OH, PA, RI, VT, WA, WI, WV.
Native range
Introduced / established
11 sourced range or established records. This is not an invasive warning.
USDA hardiness
Only uncertain or inapplicable hardiness rows are cited; no primary zone is projected.
3. Legal, ecological, and broader status
Legal-list status
Seed-list status
Reported invasive here
1 ecological invasive report.
Broader regional context
Federal context
How to read this page
The status above is computed from the cited rows below: independent recommendations can support a fire-resistant result, an avoid row can produce keep-away, and disagreement stays visible as conflict. Placement notes preserve each source’s own scheme rather than translating unlike rules into one scale. This is evidence about a plant, not permission to plant it in every part of the defensible space; Zone 0 remains noncombustible.
Native and introduced range evidence
These are exact U.S. botanical-area records from the cited range source. Native and
introduced describe biogeographic relationship, not fire performance or planting approval.
Doubtful and extinct rows stay visible but do not count as current presence.
The lossless worldwide derivative is retained once in the research corpus; object pages repeat only exact U.S. areas needed by the local lens. The JSON twin carries the same page assertions.
Plant hardiness evidence
These values describe the plant source. Your ZIP zone comes from the separate 2023 USDA
Plant Hardiness Zone Map. Whole-zone values stay whole-zone, and a single unresolved value
is not treated as a tolerance range. Different source boundaries stay separate: overlapping
statements are compared independently, while only ranges with no shared zone are called a conflict.
Source prints 5 · single-value meaning unresolved · whole zone precision · source stated
Source taxon: Calluna vulgaris · exact match.
Source location: Cold Hardiness Zone field in the recovered selector record.
Not used for comparison: The recovered selector prints one Cold Hardiness Zone value but does not define it as a minimum threshold or a one-zone range.
Where its sources say to plant it
Placement rules below use each source's own distances or named zones, tied to its rating.
They are not interchangeable with the directory's current Zone 0 guidance.
Eastern United States Fire Performance Plant Selector: Landscape Zone 2 — 5–10 ft from the structure; maintained lawn or fuel breaks, with easily ignited evergreens avoided [Fire Performance Plant Selector landscape zone] (mid-scale rating)
Guía de pirojardinería: not suitable inside or outside the 25-metre maximum-risk zone [girona-2020-iuf-25m-suitability] (with its avoid rating)
The evidence
Grouped by what each source concluded. Primary evidence rated the plant itself
(a lab, field program, or original curation); corroboration compiled or
republished another source's rating and resolves to its root lineage.
Calluna vulgaris is rated “MUY DESACONSEJADA” by the guide's qualitative IUF garden-suitability method. The method assumes species-specific care and integrates fire evidence with fuel structure, maintenance, origin, invasiveness, and expert fire-service experience.
20 cited rows from this source; its identity, lineage and tier are stated once.
“calorific value (kcal/kg): 5479.12”
FLAMITS record 3950; Combustibility measurement; plant part twigs; fuel live; predrying yes; device calorimeter; site Gillon1997-1; sampling june to september. Primary study Gillon1997: Gillon, D., Hernando, C., Valette, J.-C., & Joffre, R. (1997). Fast estimation of the calorific values of forest fuels by near infrared-reflectance spectroscopy. Canadian Journal of Forest Research, 27, 760-765.
Primary study Martin1989: Martín, E., & Miguel, L. (1989). Inflamabilidad y energía de las especies de sotobosque
Shared row context: plant part twigs; fuel live; predrying yes; device epiradiator; site Martin1989-2.
FLAMITS record 7884; Combustibility measurement; sampling ND.
“flammability value: 4”
FLAMITS record 7931; Ignitability measurement; sampling ND.
Primary study Santana2014: Santana, V. M., & Marrs, R. H. (2014). Flammability properties of British heathland and moorland vegetation: Models for predicting fire ignition. Journal of Environmental Management, 139, 88-96.
Shared row context: plant part litter; fuel dead; predrying yes; device calorimeter; site Santana2014-2; sampling summer and autumn.
“calorific value (kcal/kg): 1109.09”
FLAMITS record 11909; Combustibility measurement.
“ignition frequency (%): 69.77”
FLAMITS record 11910; Ignitability measurement.
“frequency of sustained flaming (%): 37.2”
FLAMITS record 11911; Sustainability measurement.
Primary study Valette1990: Valette, J.-C. (1990). Flammabilities of Mediterranean forest species. Effects on the combustibility of the forest communities inflammabilités des espèces forestières méditerranéennes. Conséquences sur la combustibilité des formations forestières. Revue forestière française, 42, 76-92.
Shared row context: Ignitability measurement; plant part leaves; fuel live; predrying no; device epiradiator; site Valette1990-1; sampling june to september.
