Phylica laevigata Pillans

A much branched, dwarf shrub, with ascending wiry branches. Branchlets slender, with a dense covering of ascending, grey hairs. Leaves crowded, 4-5 mm long: lamina erect-spreading or spreading, slightly incurved, oblong-lanceolate, obtuse or tipped with an apiculus, cordate at base, with closely revolute margins covering the lower surface or almost so; upper surface smooth, at first pilose on the margins and about the apex, becoming glabrous and shiny: petiole short, inconspicuous. Capitula usually solitary, 4-5 mm wide, few-flowered, subtended by several short leaves and foliaceous bracts. Bracts about 2 mm long, oblong, acute, villous on the outer surface. Bracteoles 2, sometimes absent, about half as long, linear. Flowers stipitate, 3-3.5 mm long, closely covered outside with ascending, rather coarse, straight hairs: calyx-tube broadly cyathiform, lined with an inconspicuous disc: sepals 1 mm long, deltoid-ovate, acute, convex at the apex. Petals inserted at the mouth of the tube, 0.5 mm long: lamina orbicular, cucullate: claw as long, cuneate-oblong. Anthers reniform, 1-celled. Ovary obconic. Stigma sessile, pulvinate. Fruit about 3 mm long, obovate-rotundate, deeply furrowed, pilose or glabrate, surmounted by a small calyx-base.