Metalasia albescens P.O.Karis

Erect shrublet, sparingly branched, up to 0.8 m high. Branches ascending, young very densely whitish-tomentose, older becoming slightly less tomentose with tomentum persistent for 3-4 seasons, with indistinct leaf-scars. Foliage dense. Leaves declinate or sometimes spreading, straight but generally with tips slightly curved inwards, with axillary brachyblasts about half as long as the subtending leaf, involute to highly involute, narrowly triangular to lanceolate, 1.7-6.5 x 0.6-1.4 mm, acute, slightly twisted to half-twisted, glabrous, sometimes carinate, midvein sometimes invisible. Synflorescenses 20-40 mm wide, dense, conspicuously branched, with numerous capitula arranged in 8-15 branched clusters, each containing 5 to numerous capitula. Peduncles 3-10 mm long. Capitula 3(-4)-flowered, sessile, often slightly fused by hairs or free from one another, lower half of each capitulum hairy. Involucre narrowly cyathiform to very narrowly campanulate, apically 1-1.5 mm wide, up to 3 mm wide at anthesis. Involucral bracts in 4-5 series, gradually longer inwards, outermost about half as long as the innermost, outermost subfoliaceous with a scarious lamina, those inwards petaloid, outermost narrowly lanceolate to oblanceolate, those inwards narrowly obovate to narrowly oblanceolate, all except outermost usually with narrow to broad hyaline margins, all acute to rounded and obtuse, all slightly apiculate, outermost with interlocking hairs reaching above the middle of the bract, those inwards less hairy to glabrous, all apically erect, outermost reddish, those inwards reddish above the stereome but otherwise pink and soon fading, innermost with a stereome about 1.3-2.5 times as long as the lamina. Corolla narrowly cylindrical, usually slightly widened above the middle, 3.6-3.9 mm long; lobes erect. Anthers apically rounded or sometimes almost truncate and then sometimes slightly notched. Cypselas brown (only very immature cypselas seen). Pappus bristles with a serrate and narrow or sometimes broader shaft, apically flat and serrate to entire, slightly thickened towards the very apex, acute to very acute.