Selago perplexa Hilliard

Dwarf woody shrublet c. 150-600 mm tall, virgately very well branched, branches spreading to erect, old stems bare, rough with persistent leaf bases, both old and young stems clad in recurved hairs up to c. 0.1-0.15 mm long, minute globular glands as well, sometimes oozing, stem then varnished, closely leafy but internodes clearly visible. Leaves ± ternate, not fascicled, ascending to recurved, largest ones 2.5-6 x 1-1.2(-1.5) mm, lanceolate, apex obtuse, base slightly narrowed, decurrent, margins entire, thickened, texture moderately thick, venation invisible, glandular-punctate, sometimes varnished. Inflorescence a crowded spike c. 20-50 x 15 mm in flower, becoming more lax at base in fruit, solitary at tips of innumerable leafy branchlets. Brad adnate to pedicel, lowermost (3.4-)5-8 x (1.8-)2.1-3.5 mm, lanceolate to rhomboid, subacute, base pouched, enfolding the strongly incurved pedicel, strongly veined, glandular-punctate, sometimes varnished, minute globular glands on both surfaces, acute hairs up to 0.25-0.6 mm long on lower margins, sometimes shorter. Pedicel c. 0.3-0.5 mm long, but so strongly incurved that flowers look sessile. Calyx (2.6-)3.3-4.5 mm long, campanulate, subequally 5-lobed less than halfway to base, lobes strongly keeled, hairs on margins' up to 0.4-0.6 mm long or occasionally shorter, up to 0.3-0.4 mm long (or occasionally shorter) all over outside, together with minute glandular hairs, these also all over inside of calyx. Corolla tube (5.5-)6.4-11.5 mm long, funnel-shaped, limb c. 5-6.4 mm across lateral lobes, posticous lobes 1.8-2.5 x 1.4-2 mm, anticous lobe 2.2-3.4 x 1.4-2 mm, all lobes elliptic, white. Stamens: posticous filaments 0.8-1.7 mm long, anthers included or in mouth; anticous filaments 1.7-2.8 mm long, anthers well exerted. Stigma and style c. 6-9 mm long, style pubescent, hairs acute or gland-tipped, or mixed. Ovary c. 1.1 x 0.6 mm, glabrous. Cocci c. 2.5-3.8 x 1.5-2 mm, red-brown, smooth, inner face plane, both cocci held within persistent calyx.