Seriphium incanum (Thunb.) Pers.

Erect woody, much branched shrub, subshrub or densely entangled bushes; albo-tomentose or glaucous, grey-green to yellowish green; up to 0.6 m tall. Branches densely leafy, densely or sparsely tomentose, usually in loose whorls. Leaves very variable, always at least basally adpressed, tightly involute; ranging from densely woolly to almost glabrous; tips acute or shortly mucronate; often slender, up to 8 mm long and spreading horizontally; occasionally spirally twisted and then ascending, inclined or spreading horizontally; occasionally short, up to 3 mm long, and adpressed for the whole length or with slightly reflexed tips, sometimes up to 11 x 2 mm, very woolly, adpressed or slightly spreading. Synflorescences terminal on branches, globose, subglobose or cylindrical, up to 40 x 10 mm, occasionally very densely woolly. Capitula 1-flowered. Receptacle stalk-like. Involucral bracts 10-12, golden brown to dark brown, outermost 2.5 mm long, green, leafy, much shorter than the inner; innermost 5 mm long, tapering into a fine, often recurved, acuminate point, overtopping the florets by about a third their length, abaxial surface tomentose. Disc florets bisexual, 2.5 mm long, tube widening slightly in upper part, upper half usually plum-red, occasionally yellow; lobes small, erect, triangular. Anthers 5, tails poorly developed, apical appendages lanceolate. Style bifid, branches much exserted from the corolla at maturity, base swollen. Nectaries absent. Cypselas short-hairy, faintly ribbed, hair tips rounded or slightly inflated. Pappus setae 10-16, slightly fused, plumose from the base; plumes soft, ascending, not tufted at the tips.