Heterolepis peduncularis Dc.

Habit: sparsely-branched, twiggy shrublet 0.20-1.0 m high. Stems: younger stems slender and pale with a dense white-woolly indumentum; older stems with thin dark bark; longitudinally striate, eglandular. Leaves: borne mainly on the lower stems, loosely imbricate, erect or erect-spreading, linear, lower leaves 20-60 x 1.5-2.0 mm, leaves decreasing in length acropetally, upper leaves <10 mm long; sessile, obscurely auricled at base, apex bluntly acute, somewhat thickened and leathery, margins strongly revolute and covering the edges of the abaxial surface, with small sparse marginal teeth or sometimes entire, adaxial surface grey-green, glabrous to glabrescent, abaxial surface densely white-tomentose except on midrib which is prominent and green. Peduncle: 40-190 mm long when mature, elongating rapidly on floral maturation, bearing one or two minute leaflike bracteoles; not woolly or only sparsely so; reddish-brown, faintly striate and densely invested with very fine to stout stalked trichomes (type A). Capitula: radiate, occasionally discoid, in pressed specimens mature heads are 12-35 mm in diameter including expanded rays, containing ± 25-42 discs and ± 6-12 rays (based on dissection of heads from two specimens). Involucre: 8-15 mm across, green, fleshy portion of bracts glabrous or sparsely white-woolly, as well as densely glandular with trichomes of type A. Outermost bracts narrowly deltoid-lanceolate, free portion 4-6 x 1.0-1.2 mm, innermost bracts with free portion 14-18 x 2.5-5 mm. Receptacle: alveole margin projections irregular and slightly thickened. Ray florets: corolla golden yellow, tube with stalked trichomes of type B, lamina 3-4 x 8-12 mm. Point at which style sweeping-hair covering begins is unmarked by any swelling or hair tuft. Style branches short, broadly acute. Sterile anthers reduced, with no or very short filaments. Cypsela and pappus as in disc florets. Disc florets: golden yellow, 10 mm long, tube sparsely covered in elongate, multicellular clavate-tipped trichomes (type B); corolla lobes broadly acute, 2-3 mm in length, strongly recurved after anthesis, abaxially invested with blunt-ended multicellular trichomes (type C) near apex. Style exserted ± 6 mm beyond corolla tube; point at which sweeping-hair covering begins marked by a ring of longer hairs. Style branches short, broadly acute. Anther tube narrow, apical anther appendages thin, flat, short, obtuse, with a central patch of pigmented cells; anther bases sagittate with elongate, rounded tails. Pappus: of approximately 25-35 straw-coloured or black-tinged bristle-like scales, inner series coming to about halfway up the corolla lobes, outer series shorter than this, to between half and three-quarters of the length of the inner. Pappus scales fused at base, individual bristles conspicuously widened near base (to about 0.5 mm wide), tapering towards apex. Bristle margins and apex plumose, plumes upwardly-directed. Cypsela: twin-hairs straw-coloured or reddish-brown. Flowers mainly in early summer, with the peak flowering period in October and November, tailing off in December. However, flowering specimens have been collected in several other months (January, February, June, July and September).