Passerina obtusifolia Thoday

Erect shrubs with several fairly stout stems, bare at base, branching profusely higher up, (0.3-)0.8-1.8(-2.4) m high. Stems ash-grey; indumentum of young stems whitish tomentose. flaking off, becoming scabrid on older branchlets and forming lengthwise patterns with cork, which fissures lengthwise; sclerenchyma fibres protruding between fissures; leaf scars oblate. Leaves greyish green, imbricate, spreading at an angle of 45°, plane shape linear, straight or incurved, length x depth 4.0-8.0(-12.0) x 0.9-1.5 mm. adaxial surface concave, comose, abaxial surface convex, coriaceous, glabrous; base sessile; apex obtuse; margins glabrous, involute. Inflorescences with multiflowered main and co-florescences; spikes usually extended, 8-16-flowered. arrangement terminal, axis whitish tomentose, proliferating growth common. Bracts spreading, narrowly obtrullate, length x depth (4.0-)5.8 x 1.5(-1.7) mm; lamina greyish green, adaxially concave (inside), abaxially convex (outside), coriaceous, glabrous outside, tomentose inside, closely 2-ribbed at margins, midrib extending beyond lamina into a leaf-like point, apex obtuse; wings absent; base cuneate; margins glabrous, involute. Floral envelope ±6.8 mm long, papyraceous and yellow-pink during pollination. dehydrated after shedding of pollen, turning red to brown. Hypanthium glabrous at ovary, neck tomentose, ±1.8 mm long. Sepals: with outer sepals cymbiform, adaxially tomentose, abaxially glabrous; inner sepals narrowly oblong, adaxially tomentose. abaxially glabrous. Androecium with filaments of antipetalous whorl ±1.2 mm and those of antisepalous whorl ±2.2 mm long; anthers ±1.1 x 0.5 mm, sub-basifixed, 2-thecous and 4-locular. Ovary ±2.5 x 1.1 mm. Fruit an achene with pericarp membranous and dry, ±2.3 x 1.2 mm. enveloped by persistent. loosely arranged hypanthium. breaking up at circumference of ovary, resulting in sepals and androecium being shed.