Helichrysum lancifolium (Thunb.) Thunb.

Subshrub, branches weak, straggling, up to 600 mm long, closely leafy. Leaves imbricate, 6-18 x 1.5-4 mm, scarcely diminishing upwards on sterile twigs, abruptly passing into smaller, appressed bracts on flowering stems, linear-lanceolate, lower half appressed, webbed to stem, base broad, half-clasping, upper half flat or conduplicate, recurved, apex acute to acuminate, apiculate, both surfaces enveloped in closely woven silvery, silky indumentum. Heads heterogamous, turbinate, mostly ±25-35 mm long, 40-50 mm across the radiating bracts, solitary at branchlet tips in upper leaf axils, branchlets peduncle-like, 50-200 mm long, closely bracteate, bracts appressed, uppermost tipped with papery brown scales passing into involucral bracts. Involucral bracts in ±7 series, loosely imbricate, graded, inner much exceeding flowers, linear-lanceolate, acuminate, white usually overlaid pale to deep rose or crimson, outer bracts ovate to ovate-lanceolate, acute to acuminate, golden-brown. Receptacle very shortly honeycombed. Flowers 73-130, 20-35 female, 45-110 homogamous. Achenes 1.25 mm long, cylindric, with myxogenic duplex hairs. Pappus bristles many, about equalling corolla, tips subplumose, shaft barbellate to scabrid, bases lightly fused.