Erica leucanthera flowers

The numerous, short-stalked flowers of Erica leucanthera grow in threes at the tips of many erect flowering branchlets that form long panicle-shaped plumes. The flowers have a fruit fragrance. The papery bracteoles behind each flower are scale-like and coloured as the corollas. The sepals are petal-like, also papery and coloured as the corollas. The keeled sepals overlap in two opposite pairs, half as long as the corollas.

The hairless corollas are four-angled and cup-shaped between the sepals, creamy white or pale yellow, their lobes spreading. A corolla is up to 3 mm long, its tube 1 mm long. There are eight pale yellow anthers in a flower, the only Erica with anthers thus coloured. The stamens are initially arranged spoke-like around the style but later spread loosely and often slightly exserted. Anthers are V-shaped with lobes splayed and rounded bases. The styles protrude further than the anthers, their stigmas minute.

The specific name, leucanthera, is derived from the Greek words leucos meaning white and antheros meaning anther, referring to the yellowish anthers of this plant, not quite white but unusually light coloured for an Erica.

Bloomtime is spring (Manning and Helme, 2024; Bond and Goldblatt, 1984; Baker and Oliver, 1967; iNaturalist).