Erica jacksoniana H.A.Baker

Erect soft willowy shrubs to 2 m tall, single-stemmed reseeder. Branches: few erect main branches ending in vegetative zone ±100-200 mm long, internodes ±10 mm long, numerous dense secondary branches ±20-80 mm long, the internodes 1 mm long, either vegetative or with flowers, bearing numerous tertiary branchlets 5-10 mm long bearing flowers, the older branches with dense plumose hairs, the younger with simple and less dense plumose hairs. Leaves 3-nate, ±2.5 x 0.5 mm, suberect, glabrous, narrowly sulcate, the younger ciliate with simple or short plumose hairs and apex with tuft of longer plumose hairs, soon becoming glabrous; petiole 0.5 mm long, glabrous ciliate with simple hairs. Inflorescence-flowers 1-3 terminal on short tertiary branchlets; pedicel 0.5 mm long, glabrous bract partially recaulescent and approximate to calyx, 1.1 x 0.6 mm, obovate glabrous, ciliate, sulcus narrow V5 of bract, whitish, papery thickening at the base bracteoles 2, like the bract. Calyx 4-lobed, 1.5 x 1.0 mm, fused for 1/4-1/3 its length lobes imbricate, obovate, slightly serrate, ciliate, whitish, sulcus narrow short, tub becoming thickened and hard in fruiting stage. Corolla 4-lobed 2.5-3.0 x 1.5-2.0 mm, obconic, glabrous, pink becoming brown and thickened in the fruit; lobes 2/3 length of calyx, erect, elliptic, entire. Stamens 8, free, included filaments 2 mm long, broad, widening at apex with a slight S-bend, with or without non-spreading very small decurrent appendages at apex; anthers bilobed, oblong dorsifixed; thecae 0.6 x 0.3 mm, oblong, hairy except below the pore; pore small less than 0.2 mm long; pollen in tetrads. Ovary 1-locular, 0.6 x 0.5 mm, ellipsoid becoming ovoid, complanate, with rounded apex, glabrous, colliculate, with no basal nectaries; ovules [6-]8[9], pendulous; style exserted, 3 mm long, becoming slightly wider at apex, glabrous; stigma minutely and slightly cyathiform. Fruit indehiscent, pericarp thin, white, papery and very brittle; seeds 0.7 x 0.6 mm, ellipsoid, testa smooth, shiny yellow, cells subequal, jigsaw-like. Flowering time: March to May, fruiting until October.