Helichrysum albertense Hilliard

Annual herb with a slender taproot, branches 10-70 mm long, several from the crown, prostrate, very slender, simple or subsimple, dark reddish brown, cobwebby, distantly leafy except under the heads. Leaves mostly 4-11 x 2-3 mm, spathulate, apex rounded, base narrowed, half-clasping, margins flat, both surfaces loosely grey-woolly, glabrescent. Heads heterogamous or rarely homogamous, campanulate, 3 x 2 mm, many crowded in terminal glomerules surrounded by leaves. Involucral bracts in ±6 series, subequal, outer webbed with wool to surrounding leaves, inner with some woolly hairs on backs, tips rounded, often emarginate, pellucid or subopaque, whitish mostly lightly suffused reddish-or golden-brown, or wholly golden-brown and then pellucid, scarcely radiating. Receptacle raised, with flattened tubercles. Flowers 12-22, (0-)1-4 female, 11-21 homogamous. Achenes 0.75 mm long, glabrous. Pappus bristles many, equalling corolla, tips scabrid, bases with patent cilia not cohering.