Erica cunoniensis E.G.H.Oliv.

Sparse erect woody shrublet up to 300 mm, rarely 500 mm, tall. Branches erect, leafy only towards the ends, glabrous with distinct infrafoliar ridges, bark in older branches splitting into white infrafoliar flakes, oldest branches red-brown, irregularly ridged with prominent protruding leaf scars. Leaves 4-nate, closely arranged, spreading-recurved, 2.5-3.5 mm long, oblong-elliptic, terminated by a long stout dark red seta, ciliate with long stout white hairs tufted towards the apex, setae with puberulous bases; petiole appressed, 1 mm long gradually merging with the lamina, flat, ciliate, occasionally with a few small subsessile glands. Flowers in a terminal group of 3-9 at the ends of main branches, either verticellate or secund; pedicel 3.5-5.0 mm long, red with crisped hairs and subsessile small glands; bract 3 x 0.5 mm, linear to linear-spathulate subbasal; bracteoles like the bract but more slender, median. Calyx 4-lobed mostly 5 mm long, lobes 3/4 the length of the calyx, basal half flat, ovate, and ciliate with sessile marginal glands, upper half acute elongate foliar sulcate and ciliate with long hairs, sessile glands on inner surface of the base otherwise glabrous, green to completely red in dark-coloured flowers. Corolla 6-9 x 3-4 mm variable in shape from tubular-campanulate to narrowly campanulate to narrowly cyathiform, shiny viscid oxblood-red sometimes very darkly so; lobes deltoid, 1/6 the length of the corolla, erect or spreading to reflexed. Stamens included; filaments 5 mm long, considerably dilated at the apex, ciliate in the upper half; anthers remaining in a ring around the style due to interlocking lateral hairs, dorsally attached near the base, thecae 1.2 mm long, narrowly ovate, golden brown with back and filament apex dark red-brown, adaxial hairs colourless, lateral and abaxial hairs reddish. Ovary 1.6-2.0 x 1.0-1.2 mm, obovoid slightly emarginate with a short stipe, glabrous green; style 6-7 mm long, narrowly cylindric, glabrous; stigma just exserted, subcapitate. Fruit a narrowly obovoid capsule with a slight stipe and valves splitting to the base; seeds subspherical, papillate.