Erica mauritanica

Erica mauritanica, commonly known as keyhole heath and earlier scientifically as E. viridipurpurea, is a floriferous shrub growing from 50 cm to 1 m in height. It is unsure whether this species is distinct from E. quadrangularis.

The small pink flowers arriving between late winter and mid-spring are terminal, their corollas dry and less than 5 mm long. The anthers are included in the corolla. The keyhole heath name was given on account of small holes in the buds. Flowering happens late in winter and through spring.

These features mean that this plant conforms to the Orophanes Section within the huge Erica genus. Manning and Helme classified this species among what they call Florists' Heath, that bear cup-shaped flowers with eight anthers, small sepals and four-whorled, needle-like leaves on upright, rounded plants up to 70 cm in height. Subdivision into smaller homogeneous groups does help the learning about the ericas, but there are then still such a large number of little groups in the genus to contend with!

The distribution of the species is in the southwest of the Western Cape on the Cape Peninsula, around Stellenbosch and the Hottentots Holland Mountains. 

The plant grows in fynbos on seasonally wet lower 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; www.redlist.sanbi.org).