Low shrub or shrublet, 1.5-c. 5 dm high or perhaps sometimes taller, erect or ascending, much or moderately ramified; branchlets often short, flexuous, erect-ascending or somewhat divaricate, leafy towards the ends, becoming nude; cortex grey-blackish or brownish. Leaves ± erecto-patent, at length often spreading, narrowly linear-almost filiform, 1-5 cm long (young leaves shorter), 0.4-1.5 mm wide, mostly entire, often some 2-4-partite from or above the middle, coriaceous and often somewhat carnose (rugulose when dry), green or glaucous, often with a red or purplish tinge, flattened or subterete, finely and often indistinctly impressed-veined on the adaxial side, obtuse and apiculate with a short, conical, firm, often white point; leaf segments 0.3-3 cm long, erecto-patent. Peduncles erect or ascending, 2-16 cm long (seldom shorter, esp. when young), 0.3-1 mm thick, striate or somewhat sulcate. Involucre hemispherical-widely cupshaped, 6-12 mm in diam. Involucral bracts 5-12, connate at the base only or up to 1/3, 4-7 mm long, 1-3 mm wide, often somewhat gibbous towards the base, with 3-7 narrow dark veins, with submembranous margins. Receptacle convex, distinctly alveolate with denticulate pit-margins. Ray-florets 7-11. Tube 1-1.6 mm long. Lamina (narrowly) oblong, 3-7 mm long, 1.2-3 mm wide. Style branches 1-1.7 mm long, truncate-obtuse. Disc-florets c. 20-50. Corolla 3-4.5 mm long. Tube 1-2 mm long. Limb 2-2.5 mm long; lobes deltoid-narrowly ovate, 0.8-1.2 mm long. Anthers 1.4-2 mm long incl. appendage. Pollen grains 24.4-31.7 µ in diam. Style branches 0.3-1.1 mm long, truncate. Pappus bristles 1-1.5 mm long. Achenes oblong-oblong-obovate, 2-3 mm long, c. 1.5 mm wide, densely villous; hairs up to 0.5-1 mm long, white or light brown, mucilaginous when soaked.
Home