Lasiospermum pedunculare Lag.

Erect to ascending, sometimes mat-forming, much-branched, perennial herbs, 150-200 mm tall, up to 1 m in diameter. Older stems decumbent, sometimes rooting at nodes; stems cylindrical, permanently white, long-pilose; young growing points densely white, long-pilose, but sparsely hairy with age. Leaves: petiole basally semi-amplexicaul, sheathing with membranous margins, axils densely long-pilose, flattened to distal point; lamina bipinnatisect, 50-150 x 10-30 mm, grey-green because of long-pilose indumentum; lobes of first order up to 15 mm long, each with 3 or 10 cm cisions, lobes of second order linear, 3-6 x 0.4-0.6 mm, apices acute, mucronate, with hard white mucro; lobes mostly alternate, sometimes opposite; older leaves glabrescent but never glabrous; petiole of leaves on flowering shoots basally with serrate, stipule-like appendages, petiole of leaves nearer to capitula decreasing in size with reduction in number of lobes until totally absent. Capitula homogamous discoid, solitary, terminal on long peduncle; peduncle long-pilose. Involucral bracts in 3 or 4 rows, imbricate, 3.5 x 2.5 mm, linear to lanceolate and increasing in size towards the centre to obtuse-triangular, with relatively narrow membranous margin, abaxially permanently pilose, adaxially glabrous. Receptacle disc-shaped, flattened. Paleae membranous, transparent, ovate, 1-3-dentate, 3-4 mm long, with main vein, paleae maturing before florets. Disc florets 130-140, all bisexual; corolla tubular, 5-dentate(-lobed), golden yellow, turning red-brown with age, 4-5 mm long. Stamens 5, fused. Style bifurcate with linear branches and truncate apices, apices with sweeping hairs. Ovary after anthesis with dense, woolly indumentum. Flowering time correlated with the rainy season, August to October, but a few flowering specimens collected in December and March.