Erica nabea Guthrie & Bolus

Erect, sparingly-branched shrub up to 1.5 m (5 ft) or so. Branches virgate, the younger pubescent or villous, glabrescent, the older with many short lateral branchlets. Leaves 3-nate, 10-14 mm long, linear-acuminate, erect-spreading, sulcate, close-ranked, shortly ciliate. Flowers 1-to 2-nate, terminal, calycine, mostly in long dense pseudo-racemes or, more rarely, somewhat lax and interrupted on longer branchlets, subsessile; bracts closely approximate, 6-8 mm long, ovate to lanceolate, sepal-like. Sepals i4-i6 mm long in opposite pairs, the outer lanceolate, acuminate or acute, the inner more oblong and obtuse, concave, scarious, green. Corolla 2.6-3 mm long, subovoid, 4-fid or, at length 4-partite through swelling of the ovary, glabrous, dry, green; lobes erect, ovate, obtuse, about equal to the tube. Stamens 10-12 mm long, exserted from the corolla but shorter than the sepals; anthers 1.5 mm long, terminal, semi-lanceolate, acute, submembranous, cells deeply partite, muticous; pore nearly equal to the cell. Ovary oblong, glabrous, with broadly margined seeds; style manifest; stigma capitate.