Metalasia acuta P.O.Karis

Erect shrublet or shrub, rigid, pungent, much-branched, up to 1.5 m high. Branches mostly erect, young densely whitish-tomentose, older becoming less tomentose to glabrous, with distinct leaf-scars. Foliage dense or sometimes sparse. Leaves usually spreading, straight, with axillary brachyblasts usually less than half as long as the subtending leaf, involute to much involute, linear-lanceolate to subulate, 3.2-16 x 0.5-1.1 mm, acute, sharply pungent, carinate, slightly twisted to about half-twisted, sparsely pubescent or sometimes glabrous, with an indistinct mid vein. Synflorescenses (10-)15-60 mm wide, dense, conspicuously branched, with often numerous capitula arranged in (few-)7-21 ± branched clusters, each containing (few-)5 to numerous capitula; a few individually arranged capitula sometimes also present. Peduncles (0-)2-18 mm long. Capitula 3-4-flowered, sessile, or sometimes with pedicels up to 2 mm long, free from one another, hairy just at the base. Involucre narrowly cyathiform to very narrowly obconical, apically 1.5-2 mm wide, becoming narrowly obconical and up to 5 mm wide at anthesis. Involucral bracts in 5-7 series, gradually longer inwards, outermost about 1/3-1/2 as long as the innermost, most bracts petaloid, outermost subfoliaceous or often scarious, those inwards more scarious to petaloid, outermost lanceolate to subulate, those inwards narrowly lanceolate to narrowly oblanceolate, all except outermost often with narrow to broad hyaline margins and usually distinctly transparent above the stereome, all apically erect and acute to very acute and irregularly and coarsely serrate and slightly carinate, outermost and some outer with comparatively few interlocking hairs at the base, those inwards glabrous, outermost light brown to whitish or sometimes reddish, those inwards white, innermost with a stereome about 0.6-1.2 times as long as the lamina. Corolla narrowly cylindrical, sometimes slightly widened towards the base, 3.8-4.7 mm long; lobes erect. Anthers apically rounded, or narrowing towards the apex. Cypselas ovoid to narrowly oblong-ovoid, 1.2-1.7 mm long, without an annular ridge, with round short papillae, dark brown. Pappus bristles with a slightly serrate to acutely dentate and narrow shaft, apically ± flat and coarsely serrate to entire, sometimes slightly thickened towards the very apex, acute to very acute.