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Wairarapa Standard, Volume XX, Issue 2082, 17 June 1887, Page 1 (Supplement)

White Heather-—Within sight mile* of Balmoral Caatla itself 1 have met a Highlander who bad lived there all bis life, and yat bad never earn a sprig of reel white heather on the hillside ha travelled every day. It was not that he never looked for it, for every Highlander knowa that it brings rare good luck to the finder, and that the luck oan be passed on to hi* friends. Except in color the white baatbar doss not differ from that Vhich oovara all tha Highland bills. It is the ordinary fiowsr, but ia its virgin whiteness it stands out among the slumps of purple like a tiny spray of snow. They nay in the far north that when the sheep, hardy devonrer* of the tender stem of the heather, com* across it in their grazing, they avoid harming it, and tha gtonae have never been known to orut-h it with their wings. There tr* three varieties of heather common in tha Highlands, and each sends np now and then a pure whit* sprig in the miles of pnrple. The variety known as fine leaved heather haa dark green leaves which grow in threes around the atam; while tha eross-leavad heather, which i* rarer, hai a blush-tinted flower that grow* around tha item in fours.

More luxuriant than either la the ling or common cither ii the ling or common heather, whose big purple flower—not niteber-ibaped like the others—is the most familiar of all sights on tha hills. Buna, like many another Scottish pest, sings of the “ bins heatherbell:" " At barn or byre thou shall oadrndgs, Or naething alee to trouble thee; Bat stray among tbs heather boHn, And tent the waving eom wi’ me.” In all likelihood he never saw Mm white heather glinting among tha pniplt: for tha bills that Burns knew w«n these el tha Lowland*, and we have not yet heard of tha white heather being found on than. On tha other hand, we have keen shown a whiliab-red flower gathered on a Galloway moot which thapomeeeer carried away asu oharm. Hit spurred him on to noble deeds, Ms pemeeeor was doubtless lucky, but, stridy speaking, it is only the now-white heather that sets ae a talisman.