Phylica spicata L.F.

A much branched shrub, up to 2 m high, stout in the lower parts, with ascending branches. Branchlets wiry or rather slender, clothed with spreading, grey pubescence. Leaves closely set, mostly 1.5-2 cm long: lamina ascending or erect-spreading, ovate-lanceolate, ovate or lanceolate, acute or acuminate, widely cordate at base, slightly revolute at the margins; upper surface minutely tubercled, often with evident secondary nerves; lower surface mostly exposed, with a dense covering of white tomentum, often with evident secondary nerves: petiole 1.5-2 mm long. Spikes solitary, rotundate, conical or cylindric, 1.2-6 cm long, dense, with a general colouring of silvery white. Bracts 5-7 mm long, usually oblong in the lower half and widening at the middle into an ovate-lanceolate upper half, or cuneate at base widening upwards into a hastate upper portion, acute; outer surface very densely covered with long, white hairs on the lower half, with fewer and shorter hairs on the upper; inner surface glabrous or with silky hairs on the midrib and upper half. Bracteoles 2, about 4 mm long, linear, densely villous on the outer surface. Flowers 7-8 mm long, curved upwards: calyx-tube 1.75-2 mm deep, obconic, densely villous upon the upper half of the outer surface, less so on the lower, glabrous within, with a vestige of an annular disc near the base: sepals 4-5 mm long, linear-lanceolate, acuminate, with a dense covering of long white hairs on the outer surface, keeled up the middle of the inner surface, glabrous except for minute pubescence on the keel. Petals inserted on the upper half of the tube, 1 mm long, linear, acute, tapered towards the base, incurved, glabrous or with a few woolly hairs on the dorsal surface. Anthers 1-celled. Ovary obconic, glabrous or very sparsely pubescent, upon a short, villous stipe. Style 0.5 mm long, cylindric. Stigma with 3 minute lobes. Fruit 8-9 mm long, rotundate, subtrilobed, wrinkled, glabrous, chestnut-brown.