Metalasia brevifolia (Lam.) Levyns

Erect, usually much-branched shrublet or shrub, slender or sometimes robust, up to 1.2 m high but usually not exceeding 0.5 m. Branches mostly erect, young densely whitish-tomentose, older becoming less tomentose to glabrous, mostly with indistinct leaf-scars. Foliage dense or sometimes sparse. Leaves declinate or sometimes spreading, ± straight, with axillary brachyblasts about half as long as the subtending leaf, involute to much involute, linear-oblanceolate to oblanceolate to narrowly lanceolate, rarely acicular, 1.6-8.0 x 0.3-0.9 mm, acute, often about half-twisted, glabrous or sometimes very sparsely pubescent, midvein invisible. Synflorescenses 5-25(-40) mm wide, dense and usually conspicuously branched, with 5 to numerous capitula arranged in few to 15 slightly branched clusters, each containing few to 20 capitula. Peduncles (0-)2-10 mm long. Capitula 3-flowered, sessile or subsessile, free from one another or slightly fused by hairs, lower half of each capitulum hairy. Involucre narrowly cyathiform to very narrowly campanulate, apically 1-2.5 mm wide, sometimes up to 3 wide at anthesis. Involucral bracts in 4-6 series, gradually longer inwards, sometimes of sub-equal length, outermost about 1/2 to as long as the innermost, outermost subfoliaceous and often with a scarious to petaloid lamina, those inwards petaloid, outermost narrowly lanceolate to spathulate, those inwards narrowly oblanceolate to narrowly obovate, all except outermost with narrow to broad hyaline margins and sometimes slightly transparent above the stereome, outermost acute to obtuse, all apically erect and apiculate and slightly to deeply concave, inner to innermost sometimes plicate, outermost with interlocking hairs reaching above the middle of the bract, those inwards less hairy to glabrous, outermost reddish to pinkish to white, those inwards sometimes reddish above the stereome but otherwise white, innermost with a stereome about 1-2.8 times as long as the lamina. Corolla narrowly cylindrical, 2.9-4.6 mm long; lobes erect. Anthers apically rounded to subtruncate. Cypselas narrowly oblong or sometimes elliptic-oblong, 1.8-2.4 mm long, with an indistinct annular ridge, sometimes with conspicuous ribs, sometimes irregularly and inconspicuously ridged, brown. Pappus bristles with a serrate and narrow or rarely very narrow shaft, apically flattened to flat and almost entire or sometimes slightly serrate, thickened to subterete at the very apex, acute or often obtuse.