Erica gracilis

Covered from top to bottom in 3mm urn-shaped flowers, usually in shades of magenta; XI; height 60–75cm. It cannot withstand severe frosts but even when dead, the flower retains colour for the remaining winter months. An extremely popular pot-plant in Europe which is used to decorate window-boxes and graveyards during the festivals of All Souls and All Saints (Halloween). Dyed plants are also now being marketed.

‘Can-Can’ (=Erica cerinthoides)

Flowers red; V-X; foliage green; habit tall woody; height 1.5m if not burnt.

A selected clone of the “Fire Erica”, one of a few Ericas that resprout from a woody rootstock after fire. The result is the production of clusters of lovely inflated, tubular, red flowers at the ends of short branches, which form neat, colourful shrublets in a bleak burnt landscape. Fire thus keeps this plant in good healthy condition and will stimulate flowering at any time of the year. After a number of years they will grow taller, become straggly and produce fewer flowers.

See plantzafrica for more details on species.

Erica blenna

Flowers bright orange with green tips and are sticky; IV-XI; foliage deep-green, neatly arranged around the stem, point upwards and are slightly curved at their ends; habit erect, woody; height 1.2-1.5 m.

Name from the Greek word blennos, which means mucous, referring to its sticky flowers.

See plantzafrica for more details of species

 

Erica baueri subsp. baueri

Flowers white, pink or combinations of both, tubular in shape and grouped in attractive clusters near the ends of the branches; foliage small grey-green; habit sparse, upright woody; height up to 1.5m. Common name is Bridal heath.

First published 1805 in H.C. Andrews’s Heathery. He named it after his fellow artist at Kew, Francis Bauer (1758 – 1810) who was botanical artist to King George III.

See plantzafrica for more details on species.

Erica glandulosa subsp. glandulosa

Flowers curved and tubular, between 18 and 26 mm long, shiny and semi-translucent, normally pink to orange, but yellow-flowered forms are also found. It is a sturdy, medium-sized, single- to multi-stemmed, bushy shrub growing up to 1.5 m tall. Except for the flowers, it is covered with tiny glandular hairs, which give it a mildly sticky feel. The leaves are grouped on short side branches on sturdy stems giving the shrub an overall, thickly leafy appearance.

See plantzafrica for more details of this species.

Erica speciosa

Bright crimson flowers often display pale green, white or yellow lobes; XII-III; foliage green, simple leaves are whorled, linear, entire and petiolate; habit erect; height 80-120 cms. Erica speciosa can be seen high in the Swartberg Mountains in large drifts forming shrubby stands over a metre in height.

Erica speciosa was first described by Henry Charles Andrews in 1804.

See Heather Society Yearbook 1998 page 31 for some more information about this species.