Erica afra flowers

The pale green brown, downy pedicels of Erica afra allow the flowers to nod. They grow in short clusters from upper leaf axils near stem-tips. The small sepals at the wide corolla bases are narrow, lance-shaped and straight, spreading away from the tubes. They are pale here, contrasting against the longer and much darker green leaves. There are tiny, scale-like and silky bracts or bracteoles lower down on the pedicels.

The urn-shaped corolla tubes are 5 mm to 6 mm long. Each flower has four short, rounded lobes at its tip, angled out. Open-flower corollas are white, the buds creamy yellow. These flowers are not sticky but hairy and honey-scented. The eight stamens are included in the corolla, their anthers tailed or horned at the base. The style ends in a pinhead stigma reaching the corolla mouth. 

Flowering happens from before midwinter to early summer (Manning and Helme, 2024; Marais, (Ed.), 2017; Vlok and Schutte-Vlok, 2015; Manning, 2007; iNaturalist).