The Heath family (click here) is as exciting to know as blueberries and huckleberries (Vaccinium). This family includes mostly shrubs (some herbs and trees) with usually alternate, often evergreen leaves. The plants typically grow in poor, acidic soils or bogs. The bisexual and regular or nearly regular flowers typically have 5 sepals united at the base and 5 usually united petals (sometimes 4 of each or rarely more or less), often in a bell shape and white to pink or red in color. Expect to find the same number or twice as many stamens as petals. The ovary is positioned either superior or inferior and consists of usually 5 (sometimes 4, and rarely more or less) united carpels with the partition walls present, forming an equal number of chambers. It matures as a capsule, a berry, or rarely as a drupe (a fleshy fruit with a stony pit).

Native to the USA are about 1500 species, mostly shrubs, but, 15 native trees.

      Worldwide there are about 126 genera and 4,000 species. Taxonomists have expanded the family to include the Pyrola and Indian Pipe families as subfamilies of the Heath family. In addition, the Crowberry family has been folded into this family as a tribe of the Heath subfamily.