Erica strigilifolia

Erica strigilifolia is an erect shrub growing slender, hairy branches to heights from around 60 cm to 1 m. The greyish white, young stem-tip hairs are about as conspicuous on the plant in picture as the pink flowers.

According to Baker and Oliver's Erica species classification this plant belongs in the Dasyanthes section. Manning and Helme has this one among Cluster Heaths characterised by nodding heads of about stalkless stem-tip flowers with velvety or hairy corollas.

The species distribution is in the east of the Western Cape, in the Little Karoo from Montagu to Uniondale and into the west of the Eastern Cape in the Kouga Mountains. There are two varieties, viz. var. strigilifolia and var. rosea.

The habitat is rocky upper slope and mountain top fynbos in moist places, the plants particularly known in association with the Swartberg Mountains. The habitat population of var. strigilifolia is deemed of least concern early in the twenty first century, while that of var. rosea is unknown due to lacking information.

There is also much similarity between the species and E. pectinifolia, a lowland, more easterly distributed species of drier habitat. E. pectinifolia differs in its calyx lobes and bracts that are wide above and narrowly claw-like below, as well as in its anthers that have no tails (Manning and Helme, 2024; Vlok and Schutte-Vlok, 2015; Moriarty, 1997; Baker and Oliver, 1967; iNaturalist; http://redlist.sanbi.org).