Erica burchelliana E.G.H.Oliv.

Erect fastigiate shrublet up to 0.5 mm tall, a multi-stemmed resprouter. Branches: many erect main branches with very short lateral flowering branchlets mostly 2-5 mm long towards their apices, sparsely pubescent with spreading to reflexed hairs. Leaves 3-nate, erect, imbricate or as long as the internodes, 2.0-3.0 x 0.4 mm, lanceolate to oblong, apex obtuse or acute, adaxial surface flat, abaxial surface rounded and narrowly sulcate, margins acute-angular with scattered sessile glands otherwise glabrous; petiole adpressed, 0.5 mm long, glabrous, ciliate with short hairs and sessile glands. Inflorescence: flowers 3-nate in 2 whorls, umbel-like, terminal on main branches and secondary short branchlets; pedicel 0.1-0.4 mm long, puberulous; bract recaulescent from the middle to approximate position to fully recaulescent forming the abaxial lobe of the calyx, in lower positions leaf-like, 1.2 mm long, green; bracteoles 2, fully recaulescent as the 2 lateral lobes of the calyx. Calyx [3]4-partite, fused from slightly so up to 1/4 its length, subequal or equal, abaxial lobe subleaf-like to pink and membraneous when like other three lobes, 0.5-1.0 mm long, laterally imbricate, other 3 lobes mostly 0.5 x 0.2 mm, oblong to ovate, pinkish, the real sepals (the adaxial lobe and abaxial lobe when bract is partially recaulescent) often more reduced to only 0.3 mm long, triangular, white, esulcate; all lobes ciliolate and often edged with sessile glands. Corolla 4-lobed, 1.8-2.4 x 0.8 mm, tubular, ovoid or obconical, somewhat campanulate when fresh, glabrous, smooth, pale to dark pink and membraneous; lobes mostly erect becoming incurved, 0.2 x 0.4 mm, rounded, erose. Stamens 4, free, exserted; filaments as long as corolla or just longer, linear, straight occasionally subsigmoid apically, glabrous; anthers dorsifixed in lower half, oblong, dark purple, muticous; thecae erect, adpressed, 1.0 x 0.2 mm, oblong, apex subacute, glabrous; pore 1/7 the length of theca; pollen in monads. Ovary 4(3)-locular, 0.5 x 0.6 mm, globose but complanate, apex obtuse to subtlat, densely puberulous, nectaries absent; ovules 1 per locule, pendulous, placenta apical; style exserted, about 2x length of corolla, terete, glabrous, purplish brown; stigma cyathiform to peltate, with no distinct apical stigmatic processes. Fruit indehiscent, depressed globose up to 2x length of ovary; pericarp thin papery, semi-membraneous, some crystals present; seeds ellipsoid, dark brown, testa thick reticulate, cells hexagonal, pitted. Flowering time: October to December, most profusely 1-2 seasons after being burnt, thereafter flowering poorly.