The word "ericoid" is used in modern biological terminology for its literal meanings and for extensions. Ericoid could have more than one meaning, but in practice the most common use is in reference to a plant's habit, to describe small, tough (

sclerophyll Sclerophyll is a type of vegetation that is adapted to long periods of dryness and heat. The plants feature hard leaves, short Internode (botany), internodes (the distance between leaves along the stem) and leaf orientation which is parallel or ...

ous) leaves like those of heather. Etymologically the word is derived from two

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

roots via Latin adaptations. First, the

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...

name for plants now known in English as "heather" was "''ἐρείκη''", believed to be Latinised by Pliny as "Erica".

Carl Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné,#Blunt, Blunt (2004), p. 171. was a Swedish biologist and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the modern system of naming o ...

, who predominantly wrote in Latin, used ''

Erica Erica or ERICA may refer to: * Erica (given name) * Erica (plant), ''Erica'' (plant), a flowering plant genus * Erica (chatbot), a service of Bank of America * Erica (video game), ''Erica'' (video game), a 2019 FMV video game * Erica (spider), ' ...

'' as the name of the genus which still is known as such. However, when Linnaeus named an organism, using a specific epithet that described it as being like some particular thing, he commonly did so by appending the suffix "''—οειδης''". That was a contraction of "''—ο + ειδος''", denoting a likeness of form. In its Latinised form it became: "''—oides''". An example is the entry 9413 ''Stilbe ericoides'' according to Wappler's ''Index Plantarum'' to Linnaeus' "''Species Plantarum''".Linnaeus, Index Plantarum quae continentur in Linnaeani Systematis. Printed Christian Friedrich Wappler, Vienna 1785 Further derivations emerged at need or convenience, such as "''—oidea''". Accordingly, ericoid could have more than one meaning and it has been misapplied from time to time in the literature. For example, sometimes a writer uses it where the correct word would be "ericaceous", meaning a member of, or related to, the family

Ericaceae The Ericaceae () are a Family (biology), family of flowering plants, commonly known as the heath or heather family, found most commonly in acidic and infertile growing conditions. The family is large, with about 4,250 known species spread acros ...

. More precisely ericoid means "resembling an Erica" in some relevant way.Jackson, Benjamin, Daydon;'' A Glossary of Botanic Terms with their Derivation and Accent''; Published by Gerald Duckworth & Co. London, 4th ed 1928 Applied to a plant, ericoid generally means that apart from its sclerophyllous leaves, it has short internodes so that the leaves more or less cover the usually slender

branch A branch, also called a ramus in botany, is a stem that grows off from another stem, or when structures like veins in leaves are divided into smaller veins. History and etymology In Old English, there are numerous words for branch, includ ...

lets.

References

{{Reflist Botany