Erica discolor flower tubes not so smooth

These Erica discolor flowers seen near Hermanus have rough surface stripes or ridges. The stripes are longitudinal and parallel on the shiny tubes each ending in four shallowly rounded, slightly out-curved lobe-tips. The gloss on the tubes may be accompanied by stickiness, although the tubes are thought to be sometimes dry.

Narrow, leaf-like and discoloured sepals are visible on the tube back-ends, also some bracteoles present behind them. These parts tend to veer away from the tubes. The style tips in front end in minute, greenish stigmas, conspicuously exserted and here curved. Behind them, the dark oblongs of the anthers either cohere or spread loosely in the flower mouths. Maybe this spreading happens later in a flower’s life (Manning and Helme, 2024; iNaturalist).