Phylica bolusii Pillans

A moderately branched shrub, about 50 cm high, rigid in the lower parts, with wiry, ascending branches. Branchlets with a dense covering of velvety pubescence, sparingly pilose. Leaves crowded, 1.3-2 cm long: lamina erect-spreading, slightly incurved, linear, tapered towards the apiculate apex, semiterete, rounded or narrowed at base, with closely re volute margins covering the lower surface, upper surface coarsely tubercled, at first pilose, soon becoming glabrous: petiole 2.5-3 mm long. Capitula mostly solitary, 1-1.5 cm wide, surrounded by many leaves pilose with buff-coloured hairs. Bracts of the outer series foliaceous, twice as long as the flowers. Bracts of the inner flowers about 8 mm long, acicular. Bracteoles absent. Flowers stipitate, 5-6 mm long: calyx-tube about 1.5 mm deep, cyathiform; outer surface covered with minute tomentum and adpressed, coarse hairs; inner surface glabrous, with a narrow annulus at base: sepals 1.5-1.75 mm long, ovate-lanceolate, acuminate; outer surface covered with coarse, ascending, buff-coloured hairs; inner surface flat at the base, convex upwards, with an ample beard of pale hairs arranged in lines from the middle to the sinuses. Petals inserted about half way up the tube, 0.5 mm long: lamina rotundate, cucullate, with several long hairs on the upper margin: claw about as long, linear-oblong. Anthers reniform, 1-celled. Ovary obconic, covered with minute tomentum and adpressed, coarse hairs. Style stout, trigonous, 0.5 mm high. Stigma depressed-pulvinate. Fruit pedicellate, about 6 mm long, rotundate, puberulous and pilose, surmounted by a small calyx-base.