Metalasia octoflora Dc.

Erect shrublet, sparingly to much-branched, up to 0.4 m high. Branches mostly erect, young whitish-tomentose, older becoming glabrous or subglabrous, without or with distinct leaf-scars. Foliage dense. Leaves declinate to erect-spreading, straight or slightly curved, with axillary brachyblasts less than half as long as the subtending leaf, involute to much involute, obovate to linear-lanceolate, 1.7-11 x 0.6-2.0 mm, acute, half-twisted to twisted about once, sparsely pubescent to glabrous, sometimes with an indistinct midvein at least towards the base. Synflorescenses (2-)5-20 mm wide, dense, ± campanulate, with (1-)few to 25 individually arranged capitula. Capitula 5-7-flowered, with pedicels 0.5-2.5(-5) mm long, free from one another, hairy almost throughout, apically 1.5-3 mm wide, sometimes up to 3.5 mm wide at anthesis. Involucral bracts in 7-9 series, gradually longer inwards, outermost about 1/3-2/5 as long as the innermost, most bracts not petaloid, outermost subfoliaceous, those inwards scarious to petaloid, outermost lanceolate to narrowly ovate, those inwards narrowly lanceolate to narrowly oblanceolate, inner and innermost with narrow hyaline margins and often conspicuously transparent above the stereome, outermost acute, those inwards acute and apiculate, but innermost rounded or often truncate, all apically erect, outermost with interlocking hairs reaching throughout the bract, those inwards less hairy to glabrous, outermost brownish to reddish, those inwards more dull yellow sometimes tinged with red, innermost with a stereome about 1.5-2 times as long as the lamina and apically usually irregularly dentate or emarginate and sometimes slightly concave. Corolla narrowly cylindrical, 4.0-4.5 mm long; lobes erect-spreading. Anthers apically rounded. Styles with a clavate base. Cypselas narrowly oblong-elliptic, 1.7-2.2 mm long, without an annular ridge, with long and acute papillae, dark to blackish-brown. Pappus bristles with a slightly serrate to acutely dentate and narrow shaft, apically flattened to flat and coarsely serrate, thickened towards the very apex, obtuse in outline, with conspicuous acute, at the very apex fused clavate cells, yellowish.