Metalasia galpinii L.Bolus

Erect shrub, moderately to much-branched, up to 1.2 m high. Branches erect, young whitish-tomentose, older becoming glabrous or subglabrous, with distinct leaf-scars. Foliage generally dense. Leaves erect-spreading to erect, curved inwards with reflexive tips, without axillary brachyblasts, much involute, linear to narrowly lanceolate, 2.9-17 x 0.5-1.0 mm, acute, non-twisted, glabrous, with a distinct midvein. Synflorescenses 10-30 mm wide, dense, umbraculiform, distinctly branched, with 10 to numerous capitula arranged in 10-20 slightly branched clusters, each containing few to 5 capitula; many individually arranged capitula usually also present. Peduncles 2-14 mm long. Capitula 5-flowered, subsessile or with pedicels up to 4 mm long, free from one another, lower half of each capitulum hairy. Involucre narrowly oblong-urceolate, apically 3-4 mm wide. Involucral bracts in 4-6 series, gradually longer inwards, outermost about 1/2-2/3 as long as the innermost, outermost subfoliaceous and scarious above to entirely scarious, those inwards petaloid, outermost linear to narrowly lanceolate, those inwards narrowly oblong to oblanceolate or sometimes narrowly oblanceolate, inner and innermost sometimes with narrow and inconspicuous hyaline margins, all except outermost ± distinctly transparent above the stereome, all acute, outermost apically spreading to erect-spreading, those inwards re volute to erect-spreading to erect and plicate, outermost with interlocking hairs reaching above the middle of the bract, those inwards less hairy to glabrous, outermost light or mostly dark brownish at least above the stereome, those inwards sometimes reddish above the stereome but otherwise white, innermost with a stereome about 0.8-1.6 times as long as the lamina. Corolla narrowly cylindrical, 4.5-5.1 mm long, sometimes with an inconspicuous rigid resiniferous base; lobes erect. Anthers apically rounded. Cypselas (one ripe, a few not fully ripe) narrowly obovate to narrowly oblong, 1.8-2.2 mm long, with an inconspicuous annular ridge, with two lateral and one medial pericarpous ribs, without or with short and acute papillae, brown or often dark brown. Pappus bristles with a slightly to distinctly serrate and narrow shaft, apically ± flat and distinctly serrate but entire towards the very apex, often slightly thickened towards the very apex, acute.