Metalasia phillipsii L.Bolus

Erect or rarely sprawling shrublet, much-branched, up to 0.4 m high. Branches erect, young slightly tomentose to subglabrous, older becoming glabrous or nearly so, without or with conspicuous leaf-scars. Foliage dense. Leaves usually spreading, rarely declinate or erect-spreading, straight or sometimes strongly incurvate, often with axillary brachyblasts more than half as long as the subtending leaf, involute or sometimes much involute, lanceolate to narrowly oblong or sometimes obovate, sometimes widened at the base, 2.1-6.0 x 0.5-1.4 mm, acute or sometimes obtuse, non-twisted or half-twisted, sparsely pubescent or often glabrous, with an indistinct midvein towards the base. Synflorescenses 8-25 mm wide, very dense and obscurely branched, with 10 to numerous capitula arranged in few to 30 usually obscurely branched clusters, each containing few to 20 capitula. Peduncles 0.5-4 mm long. Capitula 3-flowered, sessile or subsessile, free from one another, lower half of each capitulum hairy. Involucre narrowly cyathiform or sometimes very narrowly campanulate, apically 1-1.5 mm wide, sometimes up to 2.5 mm wide at anthesis. Involucral bracts in 5-6 series, gradually longer inwards, outermost about 1/2-3/5 as long as the innermost, outermost subfoliaceous, those inwards petaloid, outermost subulate-lanceolate to narrowly lanceolate, those inwards narrowly ovate to narrowly oblanceolate, all except outermost with narrow hyaline margins, outermost acute, those inwards obtuse to acute and slightly apiculate, all apically erect, outermost with interlocking hairs reaching almost throughout the bract, those inwards less hairy to glabrous, outermost with a reddish lamina or sometimes reddish to rosy throughout, those inwards often reddish above the stereome but otherwise whitish to pink, innermost with a stereome about 1.1-2.2 times as long as the lamina. Corolla narrowly cylindrical, 3.3-3.8 mm long; lobes erect. Anthers apically rounded to truncate and then sometimes slightly notched. Cypselas narrowly oblong, 1.8-2.3 mm long, without or with an inconspicuous annular ridge, indistinctly ridged, brown. Pappus bristles comparatively small, with a distinctly serrate or rarely acutely dentate and very narrow to narrow shaft, apically flat to flattened and slightly serrate to entire, acute to obtuse, thickened or sometimes subterete at the very apex.