Helichrysum xerochrysum Dc.

Perennial herb, rootstock woody, crowned with one or a few leaf rosettes, flowering stems one or a few lateral to the rosette, erect, simple, leafy below, becoming pedunculoid and distantly bracteate upwards, tawny-or grey-woolly. Radical leaves ±60-100 x 25-50 mm, oblong-elliptic, apex subacute, base slightly narrowed, clasping, both surfaces grey-woolly; cauline leaves similar but becoming lanceolate upwards, broad-based, decurrent in long narrow wings. Heads homogamous, subglobose, ±10 x 20 mm across when fully radiating, few on nude peduncles in a lax corymbose panicle. Involucral bracts in ±10 series, graded, loosely imbricate, inner exceeding flowers, radiating, acute, golden-yellow overlaid reddish brown. Receptacle with fimbrils exceeding ovaries. Flowers 122-240. Achenes not seen, ovaries glabrous. Pappus bristles many, equalling corolla, yellow, barbellate in upper half, bases cohering strongly by patent cilia.