Phylica cuspidata Eckl. & Zeyh.

A much branched shrub, 60-130 cm high, with wiry branchlets covered with silky pubescence. Leaves 4-8 mm long: lamina erect-spreading, ovate-lanceolate, apiculate, deeply cordate at base, slightly recurved, with revolute margins covering the lower surface, dorsally compressed; upper surface sparsely tubercled, at first pilose with grey hairs, becoming glabrous and shiny: petiole hidden, about 0.5 mm long. Inflorescence a capituliform spike usually 1-1.5 cm long and 0.8-1 cm wide, hemisphaeric or rotundate, solitary or clustered. Bracts of the lower flowers foliaceous, about 5 mm long; those of the upper flowers about 4 mm long, subulate, densely villous on the lower parts. Bracteoles 2, 1.5-3 mm long, setaceous or linear, densely villous on the dorsal surface. Flowers sessile, 4-5 mm long, covered externally with silky, white tomentum: calyx-tube 1.75-2 mm deep, cyathiform: sepals 1.5-2 mm long, deltoid-ovate, acuminate; inner surface prominently convex from the apex down to near the base, with a short beard across the lower half. Petals 0.5 mm long, inserted half way up the tube: lamina orbicular, slightly cucullate, ciliate upon the upper margin: claw about half as long, oblong. Anthers 1-celled. Ovary obconic, with hairs longer and straighter than elsewhere on the flower. Style 0.5 mm long, trigonous. Stigma conical, papillose. Fruit 6-7 mm long, narrowly rotundate, with 3 vertical furrows, silky-tomentose or almost glabrous, with a small depressed area upon the summit.