Erica dracomontana E.G.H.Oliv.

Shrub or single-stemmed tree up to 2.5 m tall. Branches ascending, hairy, with short inconspicuous indumentum intermingled with stouter longer gland-tipped hairs. Leaves 3-nate, 1.5-4.6 mm long, linear to narrowly elliptic, appressed or erect to spreading and recurved with an appressed petiole, pubescent with short stout hairs all over when young becoming sparsely so, with large sessile glands on the margins and a few short-stalked glands on the abaxial surface; petiole 0.6-0.8 mm long, sparsely puberulous, glandular ciliate. Flowers (2)3-6(8)-nate at the ends of short lateral branchlets crowded towards the ends of the branches; pedicel up to 1 mm long, glabrous to sparsely pubescent, with or without a few gland-tipped hairs; bract fully recaulescent as the abaxial lobe of the calyx; bracteoles wanting. Calyx 4-lobed, almost equal to highly unequal; the largest lobe abaxial up to 1.7 mm long, broadly ovate to elliptic with the upper 2/3 leaf-like, reaching from half the length of the corolla tube to above the corolla interstices, almost separate; lateral lobes asymmetrical and adaxial lobe symmetrical, all three 0.6-0.8 mm long, ovate; all lobes shortly hairy to sparsely so and edged with sessile glands. Corolla 4-lobed, 1.2-1.6 mm long, cyathiform, glabrous; lobes the length of the corolla. Stamens 8; filaments free or slightly joined at the base, 0.5 mm long, linear, glabrous; anthers included, sub-basally attached, 0.7-0.8 mm long, muticous, adhering but not properly joined, rough with smooth sides; pore small, 1/4-1/3 the length of the cell. Ovary 4-locular with numerous ovules per locule, broadly ovoid, 0.7 x 0.8 mm, longitudinally ridged, pubescent with short thick appressed hairs occasionally gland-tipped around the apex; style short, 0.2-0.3 mm long, glabrous or rarely sparsely hairy; stigma large, 0.3-0.4 mm broad, deeply funnel-shaped, hairy on the undersurface sometimes reduced to only a few distinct hairs. Fruit a loculicidal capsule; seeds numerous per locule, smooth.