However, under some conditions, e.g. less fertile soils or less predictable drought regimes, the proportion of evergreen species increases and the forests are characterised as sclerophyllous.
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 branchlets.
The most conspicuous components of the flora are evergreen sclerophyllous plants, many with ericoid leaves and gracile habit, as opposed to timber forest.