Metalasia compacta Zeyh. ex Sch.Bip.

Robust, erect shrub, often much-branched, up to 1.3 m high. Branches erect, rigid, young densely whitish or often white-tomentose, older becoming less tomentose, with distinct leaf-scars. Foliage sparse to dense. Leaves usually erect-spreading, straight, without or with axillary brachyblasts about half as long as, or less than, the subtending leaf, but which sometimes elongate into axillary shoots a few cm long, slightly involute and flat above at the base, much involute and canaliculate above towards the apex, linear and widened towards the base, or sometimes narrowly oblanceolate, 6.0-15 x 0.9-1.5 mm, acute, carinate, about half-twisted or twisted about once, sparsely pubescent to glabrous, with a distinct midvein. Synflorescenses 10-25 mm wide, very dense, mostly umbraculiform, obscurely branched, with (few-)15 or often numerous capitula arranged in 5-10 generally free but often scarcely distinguishable clusters, each containing few to 5 capitula; many individually arranged capitula also present. Peduncles 0.5-7 mm long. Capitula 6-flowered, sessile or with pedicels up to 4 mm long, often almost free, or sometimes slightly fused by hairs, lower half of each capitulum white-hairy. Involucre cyathiform, apically 2.5-3.5 mm wide, becoming narrowly campanulate and up to 5 mm wide at an thesis. Involucral bracts in 5-6 series, slightly longer inwards, outermost 3/4 to almost as long as the innermost, all petaloid, outermost linear-lanceolate to lanceolate, those inwards narrowly oblong to narrowly oblanceolate, all except outermost with very narrow to narrow hyaline margins and indistinctly transparent above the stereome, outermost acute to acuminate, those inwards obtuse to truncate and emarginate, outermost apically erect, those inwards erect-spreading to erect and innermost plicate, outermost with interlocking and with coarse hairs, those inwards less hairy to glabrous, outermost reddish to pinkish to whitish, those inwards white, innermost with a stereome about 0.8-1.5 times as long as the lamina. Corolla narrowly cylindrical, slightly widened towards the base, 4.1-4.7 mm long, with a rigid resiniferous base; lobes erect. Anthers apically rounded, with a comparatively short apical appendage. Cypselas oblong-elliptic, weakly striate, with comparatively long 'stalks', 2.2-2.4 mm long, without or with an inconspicuous annular ridge, brown. Pappus bristles with a narrow and slightly serrate shaft, apically flattened to subterete and serrate to dentate, mostly acute, with clavate cells.