Erica inflata Thunb.

Erect shrub up to 90 cm (3 ft) or so. Branches numerous, slender, erect, often virgate, leafy. Leaves 4-nate, or scattered1-2 cm long, including the petiole, suberect or incurved, not crowded, often pointing to one side, very slender, narrowly linear, acute, mucronate or aristate, glabrous, flat above, convex and faintly sulcate below, petioles long and very slender. Flowers in dense many-flowered umbels; peduncles 1.2-1.4 cm long, slender, pubescent, red; bracts median, slender, red. Sepals 2-3 mm long, lanceolate or subulate, acuminate, glabrous or pubescent, crimson or pallid, aristate. Corolla 6-8 mm long, ovoid-urceolate, throat contracted, dry, glabrous; tube pale to dark pink, throat and lobes darker; lobes stellately spreading at first, later turning brown and closing, about imm long. Anthers 1 mm long, lateral, semiovate or broad, subcuneate, purple, appendiculate; pore 1/3-2/5 the length of the cell; awns inserted above the middle of the cell and equal to or exceeding it in length, capillary, much involute. Ovary on a distinct, broad shortish stipe, oblong-turbinate, glabrous; style subexserted; stigma capitate.