Seriphium cinereum L.

Multi-stemmed, much-branched, often bushy shrubs, up to 1.5 m tall, usually greenish or yellowish green, with a shiny appearance. Branches usually somewhat woolly, rarely glabrous; secondary branches often arranged candelabrum-like with 2-8 branches in semi-whorls on the primary branches; secondary branches curving upwards and terminating in synflorescences. Brachyblasts mostly absent, sometimes present in a few leaf axils. Leaves ericoid, twisted, 3-9 mm long, squarrose or spreading horizontally, basally adpressed; with a distinct globose basal swelling caused by two resin cavities on either side of the midrib; sharply mucronate; slightly woolly or glabrous on the lower surface, densely woolly above; leaves on the brachyblasts shorter than those on the main axes and not conspicuous. Synflorescences of small globose aggregations of capitula, terminal on shoots, globules often somewhat apart like in a necklace or closely spaced and spike-like; up to 20 cm long. Capitula 1-flowered. Receptacle stalk-like. Involucral bracts in several rows; outer leaf-like and woolly; inner brown, scarious; innermost with long acuminate apices, longer than the floret. Disc florets bisexual, brown or purple; corolla lobes small, erect, triangular, 2 mm long. Style bifid, branches much exserted at maturity. Nectaries absent. Cypselas 5-ribbed, scabrid. Pappus setae 12, a little shorter than the corolla, plumose from close to the base, plumes soft, ascending to inclined, not tufted at the tips.