Metalasia bodkinii L.Bolus

Erect, slender much-branched shrublet, up to 0.2 m high. Branches erect, young densely whitish-tomentose, older becoming glabrous or subglabrous, with indistinct leaf-scars. Foliage dense. Leaves spreading to erect-spreading, straight, occasionally with small axillary brachyblasts, slightly or sometimes much involute, narrowly obovate to lanceolate, 1.5-7.0 x 0.6-2.0 mm, acute, non-twisted to twisted about once, densely and persistently greyish-tomentose, with a distinct midvein. Synflorescenses 5-15 mm wide, dense, obconical or sometimes spheroid, seemingly unbranched, with few to 10(-15) mostly individually arranged capitula; some capitula sometimes arranged in few seemingly unbranched clusters, each containing few capitula. Peduncles 0-1 mm long. Capitula 5-flowered, free from one another, sessile, lower half of each capitulum hairy. Involucre narrowly campanulate, apically 3-5 mm wide. Involucral bracts in 3-A series, gradually longer inwards, outermost about 3/5-2/3 as long as the innermost, outermost foliaceous to scarious, those inwards more scarious to petaloid, outermost lanceolate, those inwards narrowly ovate to narrowly oblanceolate, outer to innermost with narrow hyaline margins, all acute, outer often slightly apiculate, outermost apically erect, those inwards revolute to erect-spreading, outermost with interlocking hairs reaching throughout the bract, those inwards less hairy to glabrous, outermost reddish to brownish, those inwards sometimes reddish above the stereome but otherwise gradually more white to entirely white, innermost with a stereome about 1.1-1.3 times as long as the lamina. Corolla narrowly cylindrical, 3.3 mm long, with a rigid resiniferous base; lobes erect. Anthers apically acute or subacute. Cypselas (not fully ripe) narrowly oblong, 2.2 mm long, with an inconspicuous annular ridge, brown. Pappus bristles with a serrate and narrow shaft, apically ± flattened and slightly and obtusely serrate to entire, conspicuously clavate at the very apex, obtuse, and with fused clavate cells.