Phylica anomala Pillans

An intricately branched shrub, about 40 cm high, with wiry or slender branches. Branchlets very slender, sparsely clothed with short, grey, adpressed pubescence. Leaves closely set, 1.75-2.5 mm long: lamina erect-spreading, lanceolate or ovate-lanceolate, tipped with an acute callus, cordate at base, with revolute margins covering the lower surface; upper surface smooth or wrinkled, minutely tubercled and at first pubescent on the sides and about the apex: petiole very short. Capitula 3-4 mm wide, flattened across the top, subtended by several leaves. Bracts of the outer flowers about 2 mm long, subquadrate in the lower half, foliaceous in the upper. Bracts of the inner flowers about 1.5 mm long, linear, villous on the outer surface. Bracteoles 2, almost as long as the inner bracts, acicular, villous. Flowers stipitate, 1.5-1.75 mm long: calyx-tube broadly cyathiform, glabrous: sepals 0.5 mm long or slightly less in length, ovate, acute, villous on the outer surface, slightly rounded-convex on the upper half of the inner. Petals inserted on the lower half of the tube, 0.5 mm long: lamina galeate, obtuse at the apex; anterior margin widely emarginate or straight, on a level with the upper end of the claw: claw about as long, linear. Anthers 1-celled. Ovary narrowly turbinate, glabrous. Stigma subsessile, pulvinate.