Lachnaea villosa Beyers

Compact or sparsely branched, erect to sprawling shrub up to 0.5 m tall, single-stemmed at base or branching at base, appearing multistemmed; reseeder. Branches ascending to inclined, slender, terete, internodes 2/3 to 11/2 as long as leaves, felted, leafy, later glabrescent and naked without prominent leaf scars. Leaves decussate, adpressed, scattered, those below inflorescence crowded, sessile, epistomatic, lanceolate or narrowly elliptic, 2.8-5.0 x 0.6-1.2 mm, coriaceous, glabrous with lanate-ciliate margin, terminal hairs simulating a mucro, later margins glabrescent; adaxially concave, smooth, dull; abaxially convex, keeled or subkeeled, glossy; apex rounded or acute; base rounded; distal 2 leaf pairs subverticillate, bract-like, broader and thinner than other leaves, margin brown, lanate-ciliate; distal pair obovate or widely elliptic, 2.3-3.1 x 1.6-2.2 mm, apex rounded or obtuse; subdistal pair elliptic or obovate, 2.7-3.2 x 1.1-1.4 mm, apex rounded. Inflorescence a terminal, sessile, 12-20-flowered, capitulum-like, pseudobracteate umbel with 1-3, occasionally 5 open flowers at a time, 3-6 mm diam., on main and sometimes on short lateral flowering branches just below main inflorescence forming a cluster of inflorescences at apex; umbel appears to be enclosed at base by 2 pairs of involucral bracts but vegetative shoots were observed to develop in axils of distal bract-like leaf pair. Flowers ± actinomorphic, cream, sweetly scented, pedicellate. Pedicel 0.7-2.8 mm long, covered with ascending, crisped hairs in fresh state, villous in dry state, elongating in fruiting stage. Hypanthium 2-3 mm long, circumscissile 1/3-2/3 from base; upper portion funnel-shaped, villous-tomentose outside, villous-hirsute inside; basal portion ellipsoid, outside towards circumscission zone puberulent, below glabrous, inside glabrous. Sepals erect-patent, subequal, elliptic to widely elliptic or ovate to widely ovate, 1.2-1.7 x 0.8-1.1 mm, apex rounded or obtuse, adaxially glabrous or distal 1/3 villous-tomentose, abaxially villous-tomentose. Stamens exserted; outer, antesepalous whorl arising at base of sepals usually close to rim of hypanthium; inner, antepetalous whorl arising at rim of hypanthium; outer filaments 0.5-0.9 mm long, inner 0.4-0.6 mm long; anthers spheroid, 0.2-0.3 mm long, abaxially without broad connective tissue. Floral scales exserted, arising in mouth of hypanthium just below antepetalous stamens, capitate, 0.2-0.4 mm long, glabrous, yellow in fresh state. Ovary narrowly obovoid, ovoid or ellipsoid, 0.4-1.0 mm long, glabrous. Style terete-obconical, 1.0-2.3 mm long, glabrous. Stigma capitate, papillate.