Perennial herb, stems much-branched, spreading, ashy-grey, closely leafy. Leaves linear, up to 15 x 1 mm, margins strongly revolute, white-cottony, contrasting strongly with the silky-grey upper leaf surface and the midrib below, giving a striped effect to the leaves. Heads heterogamous, narrowly campanulate, c. 5 x 3 mm, few clustered at the branchlet tips. Involucral bracts in c. 4 series, outer short, pellucid, palest brown, inner with stereome undivided, tips opaque milk-white, exceeding the flowers. Receptacle honeycombed. Flowers c. 45-65, 30-50 'female', corolla filiform, 12-13 'female', corolla cylindric, all lobes glandular-hairy on backs. Anthers with small obtuse apical appendage and tails exceeding the filament collar. Style branches truncate and penicillate. Achenes less than 0.5 mm long, with minute 2-celled globular hairs without a swelling cushion, myxogenic. Pappus bristles many, tips plumose, shaft nude, 2 or 3 bristles fused together near the base and then, a little lower, these compound bristles fused into a smooth ring.
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