Helichrysum mechowianum Klatt

Compositae, H. Beentje, C. Jeffrey & D.J.N. Hind. Flora of Tropical East Africa. 2005

Habit

Perennial herb; rootstock woody, horizontal, crowned by woolly fibres; flowering stems and capitula developing before leaves, but persisting; erect flowering stems solitary or several, 3–50 cm high, simple or rarely branched once proximally, whitish-tomentose.

Leaves

Radical leaves grey-green, (ob-)lanceolate, with a pseudopetiole 3–10 cm long, blade to 35 cm long and 11 cm wide, base cuneate, apex acute or apiculate, greyish-tomentellous on both surfaces, or glabrous and glandular; cauline leaves few, linear or narrowly lanceolate, sessile, 1–3 cm long, 0.2–0.8 cm wide, base auriculate, apex apiculate, villous to subglabrous above, tomentose beneath, or glabrous.

Capitulum

Capitula 5–10 mm long, homogamous, in dense glomerules united in a fairly dense terminal (sub-)globose corymb 2.5–9 cm in diameter; stalks of individual capitula 2–9 mm long; phyllaries brown to golden-yellow, sometimes with reddish tinge, 3–4-seriate, the outermost smallest, lanceolate, 2–8 mm long, the outer parts scarious, apex acute or acuminate, villous proximally (in outer); receptacle honeycombed.

Florets

Florets yellow, 6–30, all hermaphrodite, tube cylindrical becoming campanulate, tube 3–5 mm long, lobes 0.5–0.7 mm long, glandular-puberulous, anthers 1.6–2 mm long, style 4.6–6.6 mm long.

Fruits

Achenes ellipsoid, 0.8–2 mm long, pubescent-glandular; pappus white or yellowish, 3.5–7 mm long, caducous in large groups.