Erica blenna

Erica blenna, commonly known as lantern heath and in Afrikaans as belletjieheide (little bubble heath), is an erect, woody but sparsely branched shrub reaching 1,5 m in height. The wand-like bigger branches grow scattered short-shoots or side-branchlets higher up.

The species has two varieties, viz. var. blenna and var. grandiflora that seem to differ mainly in their size. The first one is smaller and more common, whilst the second is the popular media photo subject that made the plant well-known.

The needle-like leaves grow in whorls of three, about 9 mm long and sharply pointed. Their margins are minutely toothed with scattered glands.

Up to three flowers form an inflorescence at a stem or short-shoot tip, sometimes combining in whorls and nodding on long pedicels. Bracteoles are present behind the flowers with glands along their margins. Corolla-coloured and sticky sepals that taper to acute tips are present on the backs of the corollas, the sepals about 5 mm long. 

The corollas are urn-shaped to bladder-like, hairy, very sticky and yellow or orange. Each flower has a dark green throat ending in four small, dark green lobes, overlapping and flat-tipped. The flower is from 1 cm to 2 cm long. The specific name is derived from the Greek word blennos that indicates or describes slime or mucus, referring to the stickiness of the flowers. Eight stamens are hidden in each corolla, the style-tip as well or sometimes just showing, the ovary inside hairless. Blooming happens from before midautumn to spring.

The species distribution is in the Western Cape on mountains from Swellendam to Riversdale.

The habitat is sandstone derived, moist fynbos slopes, the lower, southerly ones. The habitat population of var. blenna is deemed of least concern early in the twenty first century, that of var. grandiflora hard to say, due to insufficient data (Manning and Helme, 2024; Bond and Goldblatt, 1984; Baker and Oliver, 1967; iNaturalist; www.doornkraal.com; http://redlist.sanbi.org).