Metalasia tenuis P.O.Karis

Much-branched shrublet, mostly sprawling, decumbent, or sometimes erect, very slender, up to 0.2 m high, often climbing on other plants. Branches ascending or sometimes erect, young densely whitish-tomentose, older becoming glabrous or nearly so, with indistinct leaf-scars. Foliage dense. Leaves usually declinate, straight, with axillary brachyblasts often more than half as long as the subtending leaf, often highly involute, narrowly oblanceolate to oblanceolate, often acicular, 1.5-4.5(-6) x 0.3-0.8 mm, acute, half-twisted to twisted about once, usually glabrous, sometimes with an indistinct midvein towards the base. Synflorescenses 3-10(-17) mm wide, dense, obscurely or more conspicuously branched, with (1-)few to 25 or rarely numerous capitula arranged in (1-)few to 11 almost unbranched clusters, each containing (1-)few to 8 capitula; a few individually arranged capitula sometimes also present. Peduncles 0-3 mm long. Capitula 3-flowered, sessile or rarely with pedicels up to 2 mm long, free from one another or slightly fused by hairs within the clusters, lower 1/2-2/3 of each capitulum hairy. Involucre cyathiform to narrowly campanulate, apically (1-)1.5-2 mm wide, sometimes up to 2.5 mm wide at an thesis. Involucral bracts in 3-4 series, slightly longer inwards, outermost about 2/3-1/5 as long as the innermost, outermost foliaceous to subfoliaceous, those inwards petaloid, outermost narrowly lanceolate, those inwards oblanceolate to subspathulate, all except outermost with narrow to broad hyaline margins and often indistinctly transparent above the stereome, outermost acute, those inwards rounded and obtuse and often slightly apiculate, outermost apically erect to appressed, those inwards erect-spreading to erect and apically concave to deeply concave, outermost with interlocking hairs reaching above the middle of the bract, those inwards less hairy to glabrous, outermost green with reddish tips, those inwards sometimes reddish above the stereome but otherwise pale to bright pink, innermost with a stereome about 1.3-2.2 times as long as the lamina. Corolla narrowly cylindrical, 2.4-3.4 mm long; lobes erect. Anthers apically rounded. Cypselas narrowly oblong, 1.8-2.1 mm long, sometimes with a distinct annular ridge, inconspicuously and irregularly ridged, brown. Pappus bristles with a slightly serrate and usually broad shaft, apically broad or sometimes more narrow, flattened or often flat and entire to inconspicuously serrate, obtuse to acute.