Phyllopodium capillare (L.F.) Hilliard

Annual herb c. 50-260 mm tall, stems simple to well branched from the base, base becoming woody, branches erect or decumbent, leafy, glandular-puberulous but these hairs often hidden by the dominant indumentum of very short (up to c. 0.1 mm) curved, retrorse eglandular hairs. Leaves opposite becoming alternate above, lowermost c. 7-35 x 1.75-6(-9) mm (including petiolar part up to roughly 1/3 to 1/2 total length), diminishing in size upwards, blade elliptic to oblanceolate narrowed to the half-clasping base, margins often with 2-4 pairs of teeth, or sometimes entire or subentire, blade minutely puberulous on margins and midrib on lower surface, sometimes with longer hairs (to c. 0.5 mm) on lower margins. Flowers few to many in compact heads that rapidly elongate into racemes up to 40 mm long, lowermost few flowers often distant, otherwise crowded, borne on nude peduncles terminating the branchlets. Bracts c. 2.5-6 x 0.3-1.3 mm, lowermost sometimes leaf-like, otherwise oblong to linear, adnate to pedicel and calyx tube, sparsely puberulous especially on the lower margins and down the midline, short (c. 0.2 mm) patent hairs on lower margins. Pedicels up to 0.5-1.4 mm long. Calyx bilabiate, tube 0.5-1.75 mm long, anticous lobe 0.75-1.75 x 0.5-0.75 mm, margins with short patent hairs otherwise glabrous or with minute glandular hairs on the tube, tips of lobes (and top of capsule) often flushed with purple. Corolla tube 2.5-3.5 x 0.75-1 mm, widening in the throat, limb 1.8-5 mm across the lateral lobes, posticous lobes 0.4-1 x 0.4-1 mm, anticous lobe 0.75-2.5 x 0.5-1 mm, all lobes elliptic-oblong, white, possibly with a yellow patch at base of posticous lip, which is usually bearded, sometimes glabrous in very small flowers. Stamens 4, anthers (0.1-)0.25-0.6 mm long. Stigma well exserted but often curled back. Capsules 2-3.5 x 1.5-2.5 mm Seeds c. 0.5 x 0.3 mm, colliculate and irregularly wrinkled, amber-coloured. It flowers between July and October, principally in September.