Low bushy perennial 12–25 cm. tall, with a very stout tough rootstock and numerous woody stems from about the base, glabrous in the older parts with a greyish brown striate cortex, young shoots ± densely whitish tomentellous.. Leaves narrowly obovate to broadly spathulate, thick with cartilaginous margins, 12–30 × 5–12 mm., greyish green, secondary venation not apparent, subacute to subtruncate-apiculate at the apex, distinctly pale-mucronate with the excurrent midrib, attenuate and indistinctly petiolate below.. Inflorescence whitish, 5–10 × 5–8 mm.. Bracts and bracteoles similar or the former narrower, ± 2.5–3 mm., with a broadly ovate, glabrous or dorsally pilose membranous basal portion which is ± erose above and shortly tapering to truncate or incised on each side of the long outwardly curving or abruptly reflexed whitish arista (frequently longer than the base) formed by the excurrent midrib.. Sterile flowers formed exclusively of long-aristate bracteoliform processes.. Tepals of fertile flowers ovate, margins erose above and frequently incised-bilobulate at the apex, broadly hyaline-margined with a strongly 3-nerved green basal vitta, much reducing in size from the outermost (± 3.5 mm. including the long sharply reflexed arista) to the innermost (± 2 mm. including the short apical mucro), ± white pilose dorsally along the green vitta.. Filaments very short and delicate, ± 0.5 mm.; pseudostaminodes ± equalling the filaments, broadly irregularly deltoid, entire or with an apical notch.. Style ± 0.75 mm., the linear stigmas divergent, about equalling the column.. Capsule ovoid-pyriform, 1.25–1.5 mm., firmer above the middle.. Seeds compressed-ovoid, ± 1–1.25 mm., chestnut to blackish, shining; testa faintly reticulate.. Fig. 15.
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