Phylica lucida Pillans

A sparingly branched shrub, about 40 cm high, with ascending, wiry branches. Branchlets slender, clothed with short, spreading pubescence and villous. Leaves closely set, about 1-2 cm long: lamina erect-spreading or spreading, mostly straight, lanceolate, obtuse, rounded at base, with revolute margins covering about half of the lower surface; upper surface slightly convex, smooth or somewhat pitted on the margins, glossy, pilose on the midrib and margins, at length glabrous: petiole short, much compressed. Capitula solitary, about 1.5 cm wide, widely rounded above, surrounded by many villous leaves. Bracts of the outer flowers about 1.3 cm long, of the inner flowers about 1 cm long, linear, clothed with long, grey hairs on the outer surface. Bracteoles 2, 6-8 mm long, acicular, villous on the outer surface. Flowers stipitate, 5.5-6 mm long, slightly curved, slightly constricted between the tube and the ovary: calyx-tube 2 mm deep, tubular-obconic, glabrous, lined half way up with a thin disc: sepals 2.5 mm long, linear, acute; outer surface covered with long, ascending, coarse, white hairs; inner surface angular-convex, glabrous. Petals inserted half way up the tube, 0.75 mm long: lamina rotundate, cucullate, tapered at base into a cuneate-linear claw of about the same length. Anthers reniform, 1-celled. Ovary narrowly turbinate, glabrous. Stigma sessile, pulvinate.