Erect loosely branched perennial to 30 cm high, woody towards base. Branches woolly. Leaves alternate, linear to narrowly oblong, acute, to 10 mm long, silky. Flowers solitary, bisexual, densely silky-villous, in vertical rows in dense terminal spikes 2–10 cm long. Fruiting perianth on a slender pedicel 0.5–1 mm long, densely covered with long silky wool forming a soft ball c. 10 mm diam.; tube thin, hemispherical to turbinate, 1.5–2.5 mm high; margin of tube thickened and undulate or of 5 short rounded erect divisions (wing lobes), continuous with tube or sometimes these forming a very narrow horizontal wing; upper perianth of 5 acuminate lobes c. 1 mm long, inflexed or eventually raised by dense indumentum arising from pericarp and overflowing tube.
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