Phylica parvula Pillans

A much branched, dwarf shrub, about 20 cm high, with slender, ascending branches. Branchlets very slender, very sparsely pubescent. Leaves closely set, subimbricate, 1.5-2 mm long: lamina ascending or erect-spreading, ovate, acute, deeply cordate at base, dorsally compressed, acute at the sides, with closely revolute margins covering the lower surface; upper surface minutely scabrid, at first pilose about the apex and on the upper margins, soon becoming glabrous: petiole very short, hidden. Capitula solitary, 3-4 mm wide, few-flowered, depressed-hemisphaeric, surrounded at base by a few short leaves and foliaceous bracts. Bracts of the inner flowers 1.5 mm long, oblong, acute, villous on the inner surface. Bracteoles 2, shorter, acicular, dorsally villous. Flowers sessile, 1.5 mm long: calyx-tube widely cyathiform, glabrous: sepals 0.5 mm long, deltoid-ovate, acute, flattened in the lower half, rounded-convex in the upper, densely villous on the outer surface. Petals inserted at the mouth of the tube, 0.25 mm long: lamina rotundate, cucullate: claw about as long, cuneate-oblong. Anthers reniform, 1-celled. Ovary tubular-obconic, glabrous. Stigma subsessile, pulvinate.