Helichrysum retortoides N.E.Br.

Diffusely branched perennial herb or subshrub, main stems prostrate, rooting, becoming thick and woody with age, flowering stems erect to ±200 mm, uniformly and closely leafy. Leaves up to ±10 x 3 mm, elliptic-oblong or subspathulate, upper surface with smooth sericeous 'tissue-paper' indumentum, green drying silvery grey, lower closely white-felted. Heads heterogamous, campanulate, ±20 mm long, 30 mm across the fully radiating bracts, sessile, solitary at the tips of the branches. Involucral bracts in ±9 series, closely imbricate, outer much shorter and broader than inner, glossy brown with a crimson tinge, inner much exceeding the flowers, white or tinged rose-pink to crimson, opaque. Receptacle shallowly honeycombed. Flowers 50-68, 3-8 female, 47-56 homogamous. Achenes 1.75 mm long, ellipsoid, glabrous or with a few duplex hairs. Pappus bristles many, equalling corolla, tips subplumose, shaft scabrid, bases cohering by patent cilia with some fusion as well.