Erica nabea

Erica nabea, commonly known as MacNab’s heath or sometimes sepal heath, is an erect shrub reaching heights from 1 m to 1,5 m. The wand-like, sparingly branched stems start off hairy but lose the hairs as they age. Many short-shoots appear on the bigger branches.

The needle-like, grooved leaves grow in whorls of three, straight or curving in. The dark green leaves have short hair fringes along the margins and end in finely pointed tips. Primary leaves tend to drop off fairly early from bigger stems, replaced by clusters of small leaves from the axils, the beginnings or tips of short-shoots. The leaves are up to 15 mm long.

Baker and Oliver have this Erica in a group by itself, called Adelopetalum, while Manning and Helme classified it in a cluster with only E. lanuginosa, the cluster called Sepaline Heaths.

The species distribution is from the east of the Western Cape near George, to the Eastern Cape as far as Kariega (Uitenhage), on or near the mountains of the region, mainly the Outeniqua Mountains, the Kouga Mountains and the Tsitsikamma Mountains. The photo was taken in the Langkloof in the southerly foothills west of Louterwater.

The habitat is moist fynbos slopes and flats. The habitat population is deemed of least concern early in the twenty first century (Manning and Helme, 2024; Bond and Goldblatt, 1984; Baker and Oliver, 1967; iNaturalist; https://redlist.sanbi.org).