Erica pectinifolia

Erica pectinifolia is an erect, willowy shrub reaching 1,8 m in height. The branches are slender and hairy, the base multistemmed, allowing it to resprout after fire. Common names include Cape snow heath, cockscomb heath and comb-leaved heath. 

According to the Baker and Oliver classification of the ericas this one belongs in the Dasyanthes section that have stem-tip umbels of flowers with inflated tubular corollas and variably hairy. Manning and Helme have it under Cluster Heaths that bear nodding, about stalkless flowers at stem-tips, the corollas velvety.

The small, mostly narrow to needle-like leaves grow spaced in whorls of four. The blades are open-backed, coarsely but thinly bristle-haired to velvety. The leaf margins are sparsely yet conspicuously fringed with pale, cartilaginous hairs in a pectinate way, meaning resembling the teeth of a comb, suggesting the cockscomb heath common name.

The species distribution is in the east of the Western Cape from Uniondale to the west of the Eastern Cape around Willowmore, through the Baviaanskloof and coastally near Humansdorp, as far as Kariega (Uitenhage). The photo was taken in the Baviaanskloof.

The habitat is lower fynbos and scrub slopes. The habitat populations of both varieties of the species are deemed of least concern early in the twenty first century (Manning and Helme, 2024; Bond and Goldblatt, 1984; Baker and Oliver, 1967; iNaturalist; https://www.worldfloraonline.org; http://redlist.sanbi.org).