Stoebe cyathuloides Schltr.

Erect or procumbent, very variable woody shrub; young shrubs in open veld are usually dense and compact, but in competition with larger shrubs, become straggly, 0.2-0.8 m tall. Branches sturdy and spreading, becoming longer and more flexible with age. Leaves very variable, often dimorphic with broad, flat leaves below the synflorescence and with ericoid, filiform leaves lower down; variable in size, 5-15 x 1-4 mm; linear, oblong or flat, slightly or very tightly involute, spirally twisted or inwardly curled; generally widely spaced and spreading horizontally, sometimes reflexed; tips mucronate; adaxial surface woolly in the centre, leaving the margins clear; abaxial surface glabrous or more often with an arachnoid-hairy layer, which very often teases out along the margins to create the impression of a ciliate margin, midrib distinguishable. Synflorescences terminal, of numerous capitula in dense heads, up to 25 mm in diam., usually interspersed with subtending leaves that support clusters of capitula. Capitula homogamous, discoid, 1-flowered. Receptacle of short stalks on a swollen globose base. Involucral bracts 8-10, the outer shorter with a knob-like leafy upper half, usually tomentose, innermost bracts about as long as the florets, acute. Florets bisexual, white, light or bright dark pink; tubular, widening towards the corolla lobes; lobes 0.8-2.5 mm long, spreading, oblong, usually less than half the length of the corolla tube. Stamens 5, apical appendages lanceolate, basally tailed. Style bifid, swollen at the base. Nectaries present. Cypselas covered in long, antrorse hairs; hairs straight or with curved tips, appearing somewhat untidy; tips tapered or blunt. Pappus setae 12-14(-18); rigid, well developed with a broad, flattened, shaft, plumose almost from the base; plumes splitting off at regular, alternating, intervals, about one tenth the length of the setae, tips acuminate; basally fused in a ring, occasionally to about one fifth the length; about as long as the corolla tube, just reaching the base of the lobes.