Phyllopodium diffusum Benth.

Annual herb 50-350 mm tall, stems simple to well-branched from the base, lower branches often decumbent, base becoming woody, upper parts herbaceous, leafy, pubescent with retrorse hairs up to 0.75 mm long, much shorter on upper parts, many tipped with an elliptic cell considerably larger than the stalk cells. Leaves opposite below, alternate above, blade of lower leaves c. 4-18 x 2-10 mm, smaller upwards, elliptic to rhomboid-ovate, contracted below into a petiolar part 2-10 mm long, margins serrate, blade glandular-punctate, glabrous except for hairs on midline below and on petiolar part. Flowers many in crowded heads rapidly elongating into lax racemes. Bracts c. 4.5-16 x 0.5-3 mm, lowermost more or less leaf-like becoming spathulate upwards, margins with patent hairs 0.3-0.5 mm long, often with apical cell much enlarged, adnate to pedicel and calyx tube. Pedicels at base of inflorescences 1.5-4 mm long, shorter upwards. Calyx obscurely bilabiate, tube 0.6-1 mm long, anticous lobes 1.75-1.8 x 0.5-0.6 mm, margins with patent hairs up to c. 0.4 mm long. Corolla tube 2.75-3.75 mm long, 0.75-1 mm diam. in lower part, quickly broadening upwards, limb 4.5-6 mm across the lateral lobes, posticous lobes 0.75-1.5 x 0.8-1.3 mm, anticous lobe 2.25-3 x 0.75-1.5 mm, all lobes elliptic, white, violet outside at least in bud, orange patch at base of posticous lip with a violet patch below that in tube, bearded at base of posticous lip, the hairs running down into the tube, sometimes extending to lateral lobes as well. Stamens 4, anthers 0.75 mm long, violet. Stigma well exserted. Capsule 2.5-4 x 1.75-2 mm Seeds 0.5-0.75 x 0.3-0.5 mm, irregularly colliculate and wrinkled, amber-coloured.