Phylica schlechteri Pillans

A low, sparingly branched shrub with ascending wiry branches. Branchlets closely covered with short, spreading, buff-coloured hair. Leaves closely set, 8-10 mm long: lamina linear, obtuse or apiculate, rounded at base, semiterete, erect-spreading, slightly incurved, with closely revolute margins covering the lower surface; upper surface with scattered tubercles, at first pilose with buff-coloured hairs, becoming glabrous: petiole 1-1.5 mm long. Capitula 5-7 mm wide, usually in clusters of 2 or 3, hemisphaeric, few-flowered, subtended by several or many leaves. Bracts of the outer flowers 3-4 mm long, lanceolate, dorsally covered with buff-coloured hairs: bracts of the inner flowers linear, sparsely pubescent except at the apex. Bracteoles absent. Flowers 1.75-2.75 mm long, stipitate: calyx-tube about 1 mm deep, campanulate, covered outside with long, caducous, ascending, buff-coloured hairs, with a conspicuous disc lining the inside: sepals 0.5-0.75 mm long, deltoid-ovate, acute, slightly convex on the inner surface, with ascending, buff-coloured pubescence on the outer surface. Petals inserted at the mouth of the tube, 0.5 mm long: lamina elliptic, obtuse, concave on the inner side: claw minute. Anthers rotundate-reniform, 1-celled. Ovary turbinate, covered with caducous hairs as on the tube. Style together with the stigma scarcely 0.75 mm long, cylindric.