The wood, known as briar root (French: bruyère, Catalan: bruc, Portuguese: betouro, Spanish: brezo), is extremely hard and heat-resistant, and is used for making smoking pipes.

[3] The heather has a disjunct distribution, including Macaronesia, the Mediterranean Basin, Western Caucasus, eastern Africa, and the Arabian Peninsula.

[5] [4] It is also present in an isolated population in the Tibesti Mountains (Chad) in the Sahara, where it occurs at the top of upper montane desert steppe vegetation between 2500 and 3000 m a.s.l.

In Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, the heather is a constituent of the tropical alpine vegetation, dominating the shrubland above the treeline in mountain areas between 3000 and 4000 m a.s.l.

The wood, known as briar root, is extremely hard, dense and heat-resistant, and is primarily used for making smoking pipes, as it does not affect the aroma of tobacco.