Erica frigida

Erica frigida bears its white to pale pink flowers at the end of young stems in pairs or small clusters. They are urn-shaped to narrowly ovoid and sticky to the touch. The short corolla lobes recurve slightly. The anthers are not visible outside the tube, as can be seen in the photo. The sepals are small, narrow with acute tips and pink with much more colour here than the corolla.

The leaves of E. frigida are small, narrow, straight and hairy. The branches of this dense shrublet that grows erectly to 50 cm, are pale brown. The older branches tend to become bare of leaves; young ones are hairy and densely leaved.

This species is one of the summer rainfall area ericas, growing on cliffs and upper mountain slopes of the Drakensberg of the Eastern Cape, Free State and KwaZulu-Natal; almost certainly also in Lesotho. The plant’s population is still stable in habitat early in the 21st century, being safeguarded in remote area habitat where limited farming activity is possible.

This plant was photographed in the Mkhomazi Wilderness Area in the KwaZulu-Natal Drakensberg during January (Baker and Oliver, 1967).