Metalasia pallida Bolus

Erect, usually much-branched shrub, up to 2 m high. Branches erect, young whitish-tomentose, older becoming glabrous or nearly so, with indistinct leaf-scars. Foliage mostly dense. Leaves erect-spreading to erect, curved inwards with reflexive tips, occasionally with very small axillary brachyblasts, involute or sometimes much involute, linear-lanceolate to lanceolate or narrowly elliptic, 1.6-15 x 0.4-1.5 mm, acute or sometimes shortly acuminate, sometimes carinate, non-twisted, broader leaves concave above, glabrous, with a distinct midvein. Synflorescenses 5-35 mm wide, dense, with few to numerous capitula usually individually arranged, but occasionally with few capitula in clusters. Capitula (5-)6-15-flowered, with pedicels 0.5-15 mm long, free from one another, lower 2/3 of each capitulum hairy. Involucre narrowly cyathiform to cyathiform, apically 2-4 mm wide, becoming narrowly campanulate and up to 5 mm wide at anthesis. Involucral bracts in 6-9 series, gradually longer inwards, outermost about 1/2-2/3 as long as the innermost, outermost subfoliaceous with a scarious lamina, those inwards more scarious to petaloid, outermost subulate-lanceolate to narrowly oblong, those inwards narrowly oblanceolate or sometimes sub-spathulate, inner and innermost sometimes with narrow and indistinct hyaline margins and sometimes slightly transparent above the stereome, outermost acute or sometimes acuminate, those inwards often rounded obtuse and apiculate, all apically erect and sometimes slightly carinate, all except outermost usually concave and with serrate to dentate margins, outermost with interlocking hairs reaching above the middle of the bract, those inwards less hairy to glabrous, outermost pinkish to brownish, those inwards light brown or usually white, innermost with a stereome about 1.4-2.2 times as long as the lamina. Corolla narrowly cylindrical, sometimes slightly widened above, 4.0-4.5 mm long, sometimes with an inconspicuous rigid resiniferous base; lobes usually erect. Anthers apically rounded. Cypselas narrowly oblong to oblong-ovoid to narrowly ovoid, 1.9-2.6 mm long, with two lateral and one medial pericarpous ribs, with an indistinct annular ridge, with short and acute papillae, pericarp apparently soon caducous, dark brown. Pappus bristles with a serrate and narrow shaft, apically flat or sometimes flattened and acutely serrate but entire towards the very apex, often thickened or sometimes subterete towards the very apex, acute to obtuse.