Erica melanacme Guthrie & Bolus

Erect shrub up to 30 cm (1 ft) or more. Branches slender with prominent, decurrent leaf-cushions, glabrous. Leaves 3-nate, about 4 mm long, erect somewhat adpressed, the uppermost imbricate, the lower equalling or shorter than the internodes, narrow-oblong or narrow-elliptic, blunt, sulcate, viscid-pubescent, becoming glabrous, softly ciliate. Flowers 3-nate, somewhat clustered, peduncles 7-8 mm long, thinly pubescent, viscidulous; bracts median, 3 mm long, lax, lanceolate, all or the lowest tipped with a dark purple keel, scarious, ciliate, viscid. Sepals about 4 mm long, somewhat unequal, the outer pair ovate, the inner lanceolate, scarious, all softly ciliate, viscid, tipped with a sulcate dark-purple keel, rosy or purple below to dark-purple above. Corolla 4 mm long, suburceolate, very slightly contracted at the throat, prominently 12-veined, subviscid, glabrous; lobes about 1/6 the length of the tube, spreading or reflexed, rounded, serrulate. Filaments bent below the anthers; anthers included, about 0.8 mm long, lateral, narrow subelliptical, wider at the base, slightly recurved, appendiculate; pore 1/2 the length of the cell; crests a little over 1/2 the length of the cell, suborbicular, deeply incised. Ovary ovoid with a conical apex, pallid, almost glabrous; style included; stigma capitate.