Echiostachys spicatus (Burm.F.) Levyns

A perennial herb with a somewhat woody underground stem, which gives off tufts of leaves and flowering shoots annually, 40 cm in height in large specimens, but usually less; flowering shoot beset with long soft hairs or occasionally almost glabrous, especially near the base. Basal leaves oblanceolate or elliptic, much attenuated at the lower end, somewhat dilated and ciliate at the extreme base, obtuse or somewhat acute, variable in size, with an average of 20 cm in length and 3 cm in width, in vigorous shade-forms reaching 45 cm in length and 5 cm in width, usually with weak scattered hairs on both surfaces, occasionally with the upper surface glabrous; leaves on the flowering shoot smaller than the basal ones and becoming lanceolate near the flowers, but with the same type of indument as the basal leaves. Inflorescence variable in size, ranging from 17 cm in length and 5 cm in width to 4.5 cm in length and 2 cm in width, the ratio of length to breadth varying from 5 to 1.5. Flowers with short pedicels. Bracts usually not exceeding the calyx in length, often much smaller. Calyx two-thirds the length of the corolla or more, enlarging in the fruiting stage; sepals linear, densely covered with long, upwardly directed, silky hairs. Corolla with a narrow cylindrical basal portion widening gradually in the upper part, regular, with rather small lobes, usually rather more than 1 cm in length, glabrous or with scattered hairs on the outer surface; white, faintly scented. Stamens more or less equal, much exserted, arising half-way or higher in the tube of the corolla, adnate almost as far as the corolla-lobes, usually with long hairs on the adnate portions of the filaments, these hairs extending for a short distance up the free part of the filament and on to the corolla below. Style with stiff hairs in the middle region, sometimes almost glabrous. Each nutlet with a median ridge, slightly tuberculate, with minute glassy hairs on the summits of the tubercles.