Erica halicacaba

Erica halicacaba, commonly bladder heath or gooseberry heath, is a rigid, woody shrub that reaches 2 m in height. The often gnarled branches are brittle, leaf scars sometimes prominent upon the grey bare stems as leaves persist only on the upper, younger ones.

The flowers nod on short stalks in groups of up to three. They grow at the tips of short side-branchlets near the tips of bigger stems. The bracteoles on the stalks behind the flowers are more or less pressed against the five-pointed calyx, the sepals large and papery. The calyx is comparatively small around the base of the corolla. The corolla is oval, ending in a pointed tip formed by the closed petal lobes. The flowers, including the sepals, are a pale greenish cream. There are eight stamens hidden in each corolla. Their anthers have awns at the base, joined to the filaments. The style is also concealed, its stigma comparable to a pinhead. Flowering happens in spring and early summer.  

The common names are given on account of the gooseberry or bladder-like flowers. The petals soon turns brown, usually earlier than the sepals. The specific name, halicacaba, is derived from the Greek name of the gooseberry, viz. halicacabos.

The species distribution is limited to some mountains of the Cape Peninsula, including the southern part of Table Mountain.

The habitat is sandstone mountain tops, cliffs and ledges at upper slopes where the plants huddle in rocky niches and crevices, watered by winter rain. The rocks aid these plants often in escaping fire. The seasonally fierce southeasterly wind on the mountains limits their spreading in the exposed positions where they grow, the plants sometimes stunted or forced into unusual shapes. The plant is deemed rare early in the twenty first century, due to its range restrictedness, but the habitat population numbers are stable (Manning and Helme, 2024; Baker and Oliver, 1967; iNaturalist; http://pza.sanbi.org; http://redlist.sanbi.org).