Erica venustiflora E.G.H.Oliv.

Compact erect to subprostrate shrublet to 200 mm tall, single-stemmed reseeder. Branches: many short main branches and a few secondary branchlets 0.4-10 mm long, the younger puberulous and with a few sessile glands or densely glandular, no infrafoliar ridges. Leaves 3(4)-nate, erect, imbricate, 1.4-1.8 x 0.5 mm, ovate-elliptic to oblong, adaxially flat, abaxially rounded and narrowly sulcate, edges subacute, glabrous or covered with dark-red sessile glands mainly towards margins, edged with hairs and pale sessile glands and longer apical tuft or just dark red sessile glands, becoming apically strigose; petiole adpressed, 0.3-0.4 mm long, glabrous or with sessile red glands, ciliate and gland-edged. Inflorescence: flowers 3-nate up to 5-verticellate in condensed head-like racemes, terminal on main and lateral branchlets; pedicel very short, 0.1 mm long, glabrescent; bract non-recaulescent, 1.2-1.8 x 0.3-0.5 mm, leaf-like but reducing in size up the inflorescence; bracteoles mostly absent, very rarely 2, approximate to calyx, 0.5 mm long, narrowly elliptic, long ciliate, bracteose. Calyx 3-lobed, 1.3-1.5 x 0.7 mm, narrowly cyathiform, obtusely to subacutely 3-angled, the angles alternating with the lobes, slightly ridged along vein on the tube, with subnarrow sulcus as long as the lobes, glabrous but finely puberulous in sulcus, tube thin, pinkish with pale semi-transparent area around veins, lobes thicker, green or red; lobes 0.3-0.4 mm long, rounded deltoid, obtuse, either long ciliate or edged with sessile dark red glands. Corolla 3-lobed, 3.5 x 0.5 mm, tubular tapering to base inside the calyx, glabrous, minutely colliculate, pink; lobes erect, 0.3 mm long, broadly rounded. Stamens 3, free, exserted; filaments 3.6 mm long, linear, straight, glabrous; anthers basifixed, oblong-cuneate, slightly bipartite, muticous, dark brown; thecae oblong-obovoid, 10 x 0.5 mm, glabrous; pore 1/4 the length of theca; pollen in monads. Ovary 1-locular, 0.5 x 0.2 mm, ellipsoid slightly asymmetrical, glabrous, with distinct nectaries around base; ovule 1, pendulous, placenta apical; style eccentric, 4.5 mm long, exserted, glabrous; stigma subcyathiform-peltate. Fruit indehiscent, 0.6 x 0.3 mm, ellipsoid, asymmetrical; pericarp very thin, papery, with many crystals; seed ellipsoid, testa very thin, cells elongate with jigsawed anticlinal walls, with no pits.