Erica cereris (Compton) E.G.H.Oliv.

Erect rounded shrub to 300 mm tall, single-stemmed reseeder. Branches: numerous erect main branches terminating in inflorescences with very few short lateral flowering branchlets, finely pubescent when young, becoming glabrous, intermingled with stiff gland-tipped hairs up to 0.2 mm long, no infrafoliar ridges. Leaves 3-nate, suberect or slightly spreading, 3.0-4.0 x 1.0 mm, oblong, adaxial surface flattened, abaxial surface rounded and narrowly sulcate, margins mostly obtuse, apex obtuse, finely pubescent all over, abaxially with longer stout gland-tipped hairs and longer eglandular hairs up to 1 mm long, becoming more or less glabrous; petiole 1.2 mm long, adpressed, puberulous and with long stalked glands. Inflorescence: flowers 3-nate in 2-4 whorls, umbel-like, terminal on main branches; pedicel 2.0-3.0 mm long, finely puberulous and with longer gland-tipped hairs and longer, stiffer, simple hairs, reddish; bract partially recaulescent, approximate to calyx, 2.0-3.0 x 1.0 mm, leaf-like reducing in upper flowers, oblong, narrowly sulcate 2/3 its length, puberulous and with longer gland-tipped hairs and longer eglandular hairs, green turning reddish; bracteoles 2, in approximate position, 1.5 x 0.2 mm, narrowly sulcate for 1/4 their length, otherwise like the bract. Calyx 4-partite, fused for 1/10 at base; segments 2.5 x 0.8 mm, lanceolate, apex acute, sulcate subnarrowly for 1/2 its length, green to reddish, finely puberulous and with slightly longer gland-tipped hairs and with long eglandular hairs up to 1.5 mm long, the longer hairs multicellular and multiseriate. Corolla 4-lobed, 2.8-3.2 x 1.5 mm, ovoid, 4-angled at base, densely and minutely puberulous, white turning pink; lobes erect subacute, erose often with a few hairs and small sessile glands towards the interstices. Stamens 6-8, free, subexserted; filaments shorter than corolla, straight, elongate linear, glabrous, with small triangular spreading spurs just below the thecae; anthers dorsally attached near base, oblong, dark brown; thecae 1.0 x 0.2 mm, oblong-elliptic, smooth, dark brown; pore 1/2-2/3 length of theca; pollen in tetrads. Ovary 2-locular, 0.5 x 0.6 mm, depressed ellipsoid, deeply emarginate, sparsely pilose in upper half, with basal nectaries; ovules 1 per locule, erect from a placenta in lower half just below the middle of columella; style shortly exserted, terete, glabrous; stigma simple-truncate to very slightly capitate/cyathiform. Fruit a passively dehiscent capsule forced open by the enlarging seeds, 2x the length of ovary; pericarp thin papery, exocarp thick colliculate transparent, mesocarp thin, endocarp very thin, some crystals; seeds ellipsoid, yellow, testa thin, cells elongate with jigsawed anticlinal walls and many small pits.