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Common names:
Prince Albert everlasting
Origin of name:
albertense refers to the type locality in Prince Albert district.
Diagnostic characters:
Heads cobwebby
Description:
Annual herb with a slender taproot, branches 10�70 mm long, several from the crown, prostrate, very slender, simple or subsimple, dark reddish brown, cobwebby, distantly leafy except under the heads. Leaves mostly 4�11 x 2�3 mm, spathulate, apex rounded, base narrowed, half-clasping, margins flat, both surfaces loosely grey-woolly, glabrescent. Heads heterogamous or rarely homogamous, campanulate, 3 x 2 mm, many crowded in terminal glomerules surrounded by leaves. Involucral bracts in c. 6 series, subequal, outer webbed with wool to surrounding leaves, inner with some woolly hairs on backs, tips rounded, often emarginate, pellucid or subopaque, whitish mostly lightly suffused reddish- or golden-brown, or wholly golden-brown and then pellucid, scarcely radiating. Receptacle raised, with flattened tubercles. Flowers 12�22, (0�)1�4 female, 11�21 homogamous. Achenes 0,75 mm long, glabrous. Pappus bristles many, equaling corolla, tips scabrid, bases with patent cilia not cohering.
Flowering between September and December.
Distribution:
In 'Karroid broken veld' and 'on flat rante'. Recorded only from the Karoo, from Leeuw-Gamka and Ketting Station (Laingsburg district) east to Klipplaat near Jansenville and south to Prince Albert.
Nama Karoo Biome.
Notes:
Allied to H. herniarioides but differing in its smaller heads and involucral bracts with tips pellucid or subopaque, whitish suffused with brown, not opaque snow-white nor with a red or brown patch.
Taxonomy:
Literature:
Helichrysum albertense Hilliard in Flora of southern Africa 33,7 (2): 177 (1983).
Type:
Western Cape, Prince Albert div., Prince Albert Road railway station, 2 200 ft, xii 1905, Bolus 11989 (BOL, holo.; PRE, iso.).
Synonym(s):
Vouchers:
Bolus 11530 (BOL; K); Wilman 2629 (K); Shearing 124 (PRE); Thode A584 (PRE); Acocks 17129 (PRE).