Metalasia agathosmoides Pillans

Much-branched often compact shrublet, up to 0.8 m high but often not exceeding 0.5 m. Branches mostly erect, young densely whitish-tomentose, older becoming less tomentose, with distinct leaf-scars. Foliage dense. Leaves spreading to erect-spreading, often straight, with axillary brachyblasts mostly less than half as long as the subtending leaf, slightly involute and flat at the base and more involute and round in cross-section towards the tip, narrowly triangular, sometimes narrowly oblong to lanceolate, 1.5-6.0 x 0.5-2.4 mm, acute to shortly acuminate or rarely obtuse, with declinate tips, non-twisted, glabrous. Synflorescenses 5-25 mm wide, dense to very dense, campanulate to umbraculiform or sometimes almost spheroid, obscurely branched, with few to numerous capitula arranged in few or sometimes numerous seemingly unbranched and scarcely distinguishable clusters, each containing few or sometimes up to 10 capitula; a few or up to 15 individually arranged capitula also present. Peduncles 0-2.5 mm long. Capitula 5-flowered, sessile or subsessile, free from one another or sometimes slightly fused by hairs, lower 1/2-2/3 of each capitulum hairy. Involucre cyathiform and conspicuously widened at the petaloid part, apically 1.5-2.5 mm wide, sometimes up to 4 mm wide at anthesis. Involucral bracts in 4-6 series, gradually longer inwards, outermost about 2/3-5/6 as long as the innermost, outermost foliaceous to subfoliaceous, those inwards petaloid and sometimes slightly transparent above the stereome, outermost narrowly lanceolate to lanceolate, those inwards narrowly oblong to narrowly oblanceolate, all except outermost with narrow to broad hyaline margins, outermost acute, those inwards obtuse and rounded or sometimes almost truncate and then slightly dentate to emarginate, outermost apically erect-spreading to erect, those inwards erect, outer and inner with a ± concave lamina, outermost with interlocking hairs reaching above the middle of the bract, those inwards less hairy to glabrous, outermost reddish, those inwards sometimes reddish above the stereome and otherwise pink to white, innermost with a stereome about 1.5-2.2 times as long as the lamina. Corolla narrowly cylindrical, sometimes slightly widened above the middle, 3.4-4.4 mm long; lobes erect. Anthers apically rounded. Cypselas narrowly oblong to narrowly elliptic, without an annular ridge, with about five conspicuous, unevenly distributed ribs, brown to dark brown. Pappus bristles with a slightly serrate and usually narrow shaft, apically flattened to flat and then sometimes subterete towards the very apex, or sometimes wholly subterete apically, entire to slightly acutely or obtusely serrate, obtuse to acute.