Helichrysum micropoides Dc.

Herb with a slender taproot, probably often annual, occasional specimens woody, branches few to many from the crown, prostrate or decumbent, mostly 20-150 mm long, very slender, simple or sparingly branched, loosely woolly, glabrescent, often reddish, distantly leafy except at the crown and under the heads. Radical leaves up to 15 x 6 mm, stem leaves sometimes smaller, upper leaves mostly 3-8 x 1.5-3 mm, obovate, spathulate or oblong-spathulate, apex obtuse, often folded lengthwise and strongly recurved, base narrowed, half-clasping, margins somewhat undulate, both surfaces glandular, loosely grey-woolly. Heads homogamous or heterogamous, narrowly campanulate, ±3 x 2 mm, each opposite a leaf, solitary or few in small glomerules crowded towards the tips of the branchlets forming a leafy racemose compound inflorescence. Involucral bracts in 3-4 series, outermost short, webbed to surrounding leaves with wool, inner subequal, exceeding flowers, woolly on the backs, pellucid, sometimes red above the stereome, tips opaque, subacute to acuminate, mostly squarrose, straw-coloured to reddish. Receptacle nearly smooth. Flowers 8-23, 0-2(-3) female, 8-22 homogamous, yellow, sometimes tipped red. Achenes 0.75 mm long, glabrous or with myxogenic duplex hairs. Pappus bristles many, equalling corolla, tips barbellate, bases scarcely cohering by patent cilia.