Description:

• Shrublets, shrubs or occasionally small trees up to 5 m tall
• Leaves 3- or 4-nate in whorls, occasionally 6-nate, rarely opposite or spirally arranged, mostly linear-oblong to ovate, trigonous, with revolute margins almost touching on underside (ericoid), less commonly broad, flat and open-backed but then less than 10 X 5 mm, sometimes very reduced and scale-like below florescences
• Flowers always axillary, in 1-12 whorls variously arranged in elongate racemose to subumbellate florescences, either at ends of all leafy branches or of very short lateral branchlets or of only the main branches, sometimes forming dense synflorescences; pedicel usually present, sometimes very reduced, very rarely non-existent; bract always present, on the main axis to partially recaulescent to fully recaulescent forming abaxial lobe/segment of the calyx; bracteoles [0](1)2, sometimes fully recaulescent forming lateral lobes/segments of calyx
• Calyx (2-)4-partite or -lobed, hypogynous, small and leaf-like or large and showy, rarely longer than corolla, sometimes enlarging and thickening considerably in fruiting stage
• Corolla (2-)4-lobed, hypogynous but semiperigynous in 1 species, tubular, ampullaceous, urceolate, globose, ovoid, campanulate, cyathiform, obconic or funnel-shaped, small to large and brightly coloured, dull-coloured in most wind-pollinated species, persistent
• Stamens (3-)8[-10], free or completely fused, included or exserted; anthers dorsifixed or basifixed, with or without simple or elaborate dorsal appendages, thecae partly united or sometimes free, with small subterminal pores or pores sometimes as long as thecae; pollen shed as tetrads or sometimes as monads
• Ovary superior, half-inferior in 1 species, (1-) 4[-8]-locular, with 1-180 ovules per locule, sessile or stalked nectaries usually prominent around base, sometimes absent in wind-pollinated species; style filiform, rarely nonexistent, exserted or included; stigma simple-truncate, capitate, peltate, cyathiform or funnel-shaped and considerably enlarged in wind-pollinated species, rarely 4-lobed
• Fruit mostly a dehiscent loculicidal capsule, sometimes an indehiscent capsule, drupe or achene; seeds with thick testa, mostly alveolate, sometimes smooth or spiky, in indehiscent fruits testa sometimes very thin, transparent or almost nonexistent
• x = 12

Nomenclature:

• Erica L.
  • Linnaeus: 352 (1753)
  • Guthrie & Bolus: 4 (1905) in part
  • Salter: 627 (1950) in part
  • Dulfer: 25 (1965) in part
  • Oliver: 431 (1975) in part
  • Oliver in broad sense, in prep
• Blaeria L.
  • Linnaeus: 112 (1753)
  • Oliver: 771 (1993)
• Philippia Klotzsch
  • Klotzsch: 354 (1835)
  • Oliver: 455 (1987)
• Ericinella Klotzsch
  • Klotzsch: 222 (1838)
  • Oliver: 121 (1994)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Species 860, Africa, Madagascar and Europe
• Southern Africa: Species 770 confined to Northern Province, North-West, Gauteng, Mpumalanga, Swaziland, Free State, KwaZulu-Natal with the greatest diversity in Western and Eastern Cape