Erica atrovinosa E.G.H.Oliv.

Erect shrublet up to 6ocm (2 ft) high. Branches erect, virgate, glabrous, densely covered with leaves. Leaves crowded, scattered, up to 20 mm long, erect to slightly spreading, tremulous, terete, minutely setose, aristate, pale green, shiny; petiole up to 4 mm long. Flowers terminal, umbellate, up to 36-flowered, or becoming axillary and verticillate by growth of the branch apex; peduncles up to 17 mm long, pubescent, red; bracts up to 5 mm long, linear, the lower larger and leaf-like in miniature, pubescent, aristate, red. Sepals up to 3 mm long, narrowly lanceolate, lanceolate, or narrowly ovate from a broad base which is sometimes toothed, acuminate, sulcate, glabrous or with a few short hairs on the edges and inner surface and with a few sessile glands, greenish-red or red. Corolla up to 10 mm long and 7 mm broad, globose-urceolate, glabrous, bright wine-red at base turning to dark plum-coloured towards the mouth, or more or less plum-coloured; lobes 4 or 5, slightly spreading, broad, obtuse, crenulate. Stamens 8-10; filaments flat, broadening into a thick cobra-like hood at the apex, glabrous; anthers included, 1-1.5 mm long attached middorsally, obtuse, scabrid, straight-sided, bilobed at the base, the front lobe longer than the rear lobe, dark red-brown, appendiculate; pore 1/3 the length of the cell; awns suberistate, arising from above the middle of the cell, slightly decurrent, straight or spreading, 1/2 the length of the cell, thick, dark red-brown and scabrid. Ovary up to 4 mm long, narrow turbinate becoming globose-turbinate and ridged, on a distinct stipe, glabrous, green; style included or manifest, becoming exserted with age, glabrous; stigma capitate or capitellate.