Helichrysum leontonyx Dc.

Grey-woolly annual herb with a slender taproot, branches 15-150 mm long, many from the crown, simple or much branched, slender, prostrate, often reddish, loosely woolly, distantly leafy but leaves crowded under the heads and at the crown. Radical leaves often withered at flowering, mostly 15-30 x 5-10 mm, oblong-elliptic to spathulate, apex rounded, base narrowed, margins flat, cauline leaves similar, but often smaller, mostly 5-15 x 1.5-6 mm, oblong-elliptic to spathulate, often folded lengthwise, apex recurved, all with both surfaces loosely grey-woolly. Heads heterogamous, campanulate, ±3-4 x 2-2.5 mm, sessile or shortly pedunculate, crowded in terminal glomerules ±5-15 mm across. Involucral bracts in 3-4 series, outermost short, webbed with wool to leaves, inner subequal, exceeding flowers, backs woolly, tips usually acuminate, often markedly squarrose, rarely only acute, dull yellow, orange or red, sometimes red above the stereome. Receptacle nearly smooth. Flowers 20-37, (1-)2-7 female, 18-30 homogamous, yellow, sometimes tipped red. Achenes 0.75 mm long, with myxogenic duplex hairs, or rarely glabrous. Pappus bristles equalling corolla, barbellate above, scabrid below, bases cohering lightly by patent cilia. Flowers from July to October, mainly in September.