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Origin of name:
albo = white
brunneum = dark
Diagnostic characters:
Solitary large heads
White bracts tipped brown
Description:
Perennial herb with several leaf rosettes crowning a slender woody rhizome, flowering stems simple, somewhat decumbent then erect to c. 150�300 mm, loosely greyish-white woolly, closely leafy. Radical leaves c. 30�80 x 10�35 mm, obovate or oblong-obovate, apex subacute, base slightly narrowed, clasping, both surfaces densely grey-woolly, cauline leaves similar, becoming oblong-lanceolate to linear-lanceolate and smaller upwards, appressed. Heads homogamous or occasionally heterogamous, broadly campanulate, c. 7�15 mm long, solitary or up to c. 14 crowded at the stem tip. Involucral bracts in c. 8�12 series, graded, loosely imbricate, much exceeding flowers, radiating, outer glossy white, tipped dark or light brown, becoming pure white inwards. Receptacle with fimbrils equaling or exceeding ovaries. Flowers 50�335, rarely 2�7 female, yellow sometimes tipped purplish. Achenes c. 1 mm long, glabrous. Pappus bristles many, equaling corolla, barbellate above, bases cohering by patent cilia.
Flowering mainly between December and February.
Distribution:
Grows in colonies in short turf, often on stony or rocky slopes and in moist areas. Ranges from Normandien Pass (across the low Drakensberg in KwaZulu-Natal west of Newcastle) to the mountainous NE. corner of the Free State, the mountainous parts of Lesotho, the KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape Drakensberg and the Witteberg and as far west as the Koudeveldberge near Graaff-Reinet and Murraysburg.
Grassland Biome.
Notes:
H. albo-brunneum displays considerable variation in size of the heads; the larger heads tend to be solitary or few together, while the smaller ones are clustered in groups of about 5�15.
Taxonomy:
Literature:
Helichrysum albo-brunneum S. Moore in Bot. J. Linn. Soc. 35: 334 (1903); Moeser in Bot. Jb. 44: 309 (1910); Hilliard, Compositae in Natal 229 (1977).
Type:
Cape, Koudeveld Mountains near Murraysburg, 6 500 ft, Jan. 1879, Tyson 98 (BM, holo.; BOL; NH; SAM, iso.).
Synonym(s):
H. setigerum H. Bol. in Trans. S. Afr. phil. Soc. 18: 390 (1907). Lectotype: Eastern Cape, Barkly East distr., summit Ben Macdhui and Doodman's Krans Mtn, c. 2 900�3 000 m, Galpin 6676 (BOL; NH, isolecto.).
H. setigerum var. minor H. Bol. l.c. Type: Barkly East distr., summit Doodman's Krans Mtn, 2 940 m, Galpin 6686 (PRE).
Vouchers:
Acocks 21779 (PRE); Compton 21270 (NBG; PRE); Hilliard 5389 (E; K; MO; NU; S); Koekemoer 1610 (PRE); Wright 441 (E; K; NH; NU; S).