Phylica nigromontana Pillans

A sparsely branched, rather rigid shrub, about 70 cm high, with virgate, erect branches. Branchlets villous and densely pubescent. Leaves closely set, 1-1.5 cm long: lamina erect-spreading, linear, semiterete, obtuse or subacute, rounded at base, somewhat incurved, with closely revolute margins covering the lower surface, obscurely and minutely tubercled and at first villous over the entire upper surface, becoming glabrous: petiole 2-3 mm long. Capitula solitary, 1-1.5 cm wide, hemisphaeric, surrounded by many villous leaves reaching to about the summit. Bracts 6-7 mm long, linear, covered on both sides with long, golden hairs. Bracteoles absent. Flowers distinctly stipitate, 6-6.5 mm long, covered outside with long, ascending, coarse, golden hairs which are caducous on the lower parts: calyx-tube 1.75-2 mm deep, cyathiform: sepals 1.5 mm long, ovate, acute, with a narrow keel up the inner surface. Petals inserted shortly within the mouth of the tube, 1-1.25 mm long: lamina ovate, obtuse, subcordate at base concave, incurved at the margins, cucullate at the apex: claw very short, subquadrate. Anthers 1 mm long, 2-celled: cells elliptic, rounded at both ends. Ovary fusiform. Style 2.5-2.75 mm long, slender, with a few minute hairs on the upper half. Stigma cylindric, entire, reaching above the petals. Fruit about 6 mm long, rotundate, smooth, sparsely villous, pale brown, topped with a small calyx-area.