Berkheya spekeana Oliv.

Perennial shrubby thistle-like herb to 2.5 m, sometimes aromatic, with stout woody rootstock; stems erect, little-to much-branched; stems striped vertically with purplish violet, hairy, sometimes also arachnose.. Leaves sessile, crowded but evenly spaced along stem with a pseudo-rosette of basal leaves broader in proportion to their length than stem leaves, linear-lanceolate to narrowly elliptic, sometimes deeply lobed or toothed halfway to midrib, 3.3–20 cm long, 0.3–3 cm wide, often narrowing to base, becoming subpetiolate and decurrent, clasping, margins subrevolute, spiny to remotely spinose or spinose-dentate with 2–3 pale brown spines 3–7 mm long to each tooth, and with shorter fine intermediate spines, dark green and pilose and/or sparsely arachnose, usually with scattered short stout yellow spines above, white-felted beneath, margins sometimes stained red.. Capitula forming a subcorymbose inflorescence, occasionally solitary, 2–6 cm in diameter, broadly urn-shaped; involucre of 3–4 series of spreading green foliaceous phyllaries, closing at fruiting stage, often tipped purple and with yellow-brown spines, linear-lanceolate, 6–20(–27) mm long, 1–3 mm wide, long-acuminate, tomentose; receptacle domed, ± 10 mm diameter, receptacular pits with erose margins irregularly produced into flattened spines up to 7 mm long.. Ray florets yellow, elliptic to lanceolate, tubular at base for ± 1/4 of the floret length, 1.1–3 cm long, 2–3.5 mm wide with 2–5 teeth at apex and 5–10 veins, outer surface with scattered hairs.. Disc florets orange-yellow, narrowly funnel-shaped, 6–10 mm long, lobes erect, 2.7 mm long.. Achenes embedded in receptacular pits, long-turbinate, up to 3.5 mm long, sparsely hairy, slightly sticky; pappus scarious, sub-biseriate, composed of 15–27 obovate scales, 1.25–2 mm long ± rounded, finely and shallowly erose in upper half.

In montane grassland.