Erica labialis Salisb.

Erect compact shrublets up to 0.5[-0.8] m tall, single-stemmed reseeder. Branches: numerous erect main ones with few to many secondary branchlets 10-20 mm long, grey pubescent sometimes with longer hairs and sessile glands intermixed, no infrafoliar ridges. Leaves 3-nate, erect imbricate often incurved, rarely spreading, 2.0-4.0 x 0.5-1.0 mm, ovate to elliptic to oblong, subacute, adaxially flat, abaxially rounded subacute, acute angular, narrowly sulcate, glabrous or pubescent, ciliate and edged with sessile glands, sometimes with apical tuft of longer hairs, petiole adpressed, 0.5-0.7 mm long, glabrous or pubescent, shortly ciliate with sessile glands intermixed. Inflorescence: flowers 3-nate in 4-9 whorls in terminal condensed nodding racemes on main branches and secondary branchlets; pedicel very short, 0.1-0.3 mm long or absent, glabrous or puberulous; bract non-recaulescent, 1-3 mm long, leaf-like in lowest whorl reducing to V2 as long as calyx and linear spathulate and scarious in uppermost whorl; bracteoles absent, rarely 1 or 2 in lowest whorl, approximate to calyx, up to 1 mm long, scarious, ciliate. Calyx 2-4-lobed, 2-lobed in lowest whorls sometimes with 3-lobed in middle whorls becoming 4-lobed in upper whorls, very variable in shape and size, 1.0-2.5 x 0.8-2.3 mm, 2-lobed calyces very flat, transversely broadly ovate to elliptic-obovate, 3-lobed calyces usually adaxially 1 large and flat with abaxially 2 smaller with a median longitudinal acute ridge, 4-lobed calyces subequally lobed the laterals more invaginated, often deeply acute-angular, ridges alternating with the lobes and sometimes pilose; lobes from very obtuse 1/8 as long as tube in 2-lobed calyces to acute and 1/3 as long as tube in 4-lobed calyces, subsulcate to sulcate in upper half, glabrous or puberulous, ciliate sometimes with sessile glands intermixed, green to pinkish, slightly colliculate. Corolla always 2-lobed, extremely variable in shape and size, 2.5-7.5 x 0.6-2.0 mm, narrowly tubular, obovoid to broadly funnel-shaped with tapered basal portion within the calyx, from a little longer than calyx to 3x as long, sometimes falcate, markedly colliculate, pink; lobes erect to spreading, ±1/10 as long as the tube. Stamens 4, exserted or manifest, free; filaments 0.3-7.8 mm long, straight, glabrous with aculeate edges and abaxial surface near apex; anthers bipartite, obovate, basifixed, muticous, brown to yellow; thecae 0.6-1.7 x 0.2 mm, oblong subfalcate, subacute, glabrous or aculeate, aculeate edged; pore V4 as long as theca; pollen in monads. Ovary 2-locular, 0.6-1.0 mm long, ellipsoid or obovoid, flat, very obtuse, occasionally emarginate, with distinct basal nectaries, glabrous; ovules 1 per locule, pendulous from an apical placenta; style exserted just beyond anthers, 2.9-9.0 mm long, glabrous; stigma simple truncate. Fruit indehiscent, ellipsoid; pericarp very thin transparent, crystals present; seeds ellipsoid, testa very thin adhering to pericarp, cells elongate with slightly undulate anticlinal walls, occasionally pitted. Flowering mostly September to December, but sometimes at other times of the year depending on the locality. The collections from the southern Cape Peninsula tend to flower in late summer.