Erica insolitanthera H.A.Baker

Erect, woody shrublet branching from the base; viscid in all parts except the androecium; about 30 cm high. Branches, like the peduncles, white-hispid with some gland-tipped hairs intermixed, becoming glabrous and scarred by the persistent leaf cushions. Leaves mostly 4-nate but sometimes irregularly whorled, 2-6 mm long, wide-spreading to squarrose, incurved above, imbricate, broad-linear to oblong, acute, sulcate, thick, the younger sparsely white-pubescent with some glands admixed, white gland-ciliate. Flowers solitary in the leaf axils and forming rather dense clusters at the ends of the branches; peduncles 7-9 mm long, dark red; bracts, two median, one basal, about 2 mm long, linear, keel-tipped, whitish. Sepals about 4 mm long, ovate-lanceolate, keeled and sulcate-keel-tipped with the upper margins recurved, glabrous, gland-ciliate, greenish to red. Corolla variable in shape and length, 6-9 mm long, ovate-urceolate, variously inflated, narrowed at the throat, sparsely and finely pubescent, rose; lobes 2 mm long, slightly recurved, subobtuse, becoming brown. Filaments ligulate, slender; anthers included, 1.2 mm long, terminal, bipartite, oblong, obtuse above, cells narrowed below into subulate awns which become adnate to the filament for about 3 mm and finally spreading freely for about 0.7 mm; pore about half the length of the cell. Ovary ovoid, glabrous; style exserted; stigma capitellate.