Phylica comptonii Pillans

A much branched, compact shrub, about 30 cm high, with wiry branches. Branchlets slender, clothed with very short, grey tomentum. Leaves very closely set, 2-5 mm long: lamina spreading, oblong or ovate-oblong, obtuse, cordate at base, semiterete, with closely revolute margins covering the lower surface; upper surface minutely tubercled, at first tomentose and with a tuft of straight, silky hairs at the apex, soon becoming glabrous: petiole very short. Capitula solitary, 5-8 mm wide, hemisphaeric, involucred by a few leaves and outer bracts. Outer bracts 2-2.5 mm long, oblong-lanceolate, villous on the outer surface. Inner bracts about 2 mm long, linear, villous on the outer surface. Bracteoles absent. Flowers shortly stipitate, 1.75-2.5 mm long, slightly constricted between the tube and the ovary: calyx-tube 0.5 mm deep or slightly less, cyathiform, with a dense covering of straight, deciduous, retrorse hairs reaching down to the base of the ovary: sepals 0.5-1 mm long, ovate, acute, densely covered outside with ascending and spreading, long, white, persistent hairs, flattened and glabrous on the inner side. Petals absent. Stamens inserted half way up the tube. Anthers reniform, 1-celled. Ovary narrowly turbiniform, glabrous. Style short and stout. Stigma 3-lobed.