Plants dwarf subshrubs to trees, usually evergreen usually mycorrhizal. Leaves simple alternate, opposite, or whorled, without stipules. Inflorescences terminal or axillary racemes or umbels. Flowers bisexual, radially symmetric to slightly bilaterally symmetric, calyces and corollas usually 4-5-merous, occasionally 3-merous; sepals free or united; petals usually united; stamens usually twice as many as the petals; filaments free or adnate to the base of the corolla; anthers often with appendages, usually opening by pores; pollen grains usually in tetrads; ovary superior to inferior, 4-5 celles, with axile placentation. Fruits berries, drupes, or capsules, usually loculicidal if a capsule; seeds mostly small and numerous.
The Ericeaceae is a cosmopolitan family with about 100 genera and 3400 species. Its species grow in temperate and subtropical regions, usually in acidic soils.
Only one genus, Erica, and one species, Erica arborea, is known from Somaliland. There are no members of the family known from Somalia.