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Origin of name:
aureo = gold folia / um = leaves
The specific epithet honours Dr Peter Goldblatt who collected the type material, and also draws attention to the colour of the involucral bracts.
Diagnostic characters:
Branches whiteHeads medium-sizedBracts golden-brown, long-pointed
Description:
Tufted perennial herb, taproot woody, stems several from the crown, erect to c. 130 mm, mostly loosely branched, white appressed-woolly, leafy. Leaves 8�30 x 2�5 mm, smaller on the inflorescence branches, oblanceolate becoming lanceolate upwards, apex acute, base of lower leaves narrowed, more or less ear-clasping, of upper broad, half-clasping, margins crisped, both surfaces thinly greyish-white appressed-woolly. Heads heterogamous, broadly campanulate, c. 5 x 5 mm, 7 mm across the radiant bracts, solitary or 2�3 on short peduncles at the branchlet tips, arranged in loose corymbose panicles. Involucral bracts in c. 7 series, graded, imbricate, backs lightly woolly, tips glabrous, acute, subopaque, light golden-brown, squarrose, the innermost slightly exceeding the flowers. Receptacle honeycombed. Flowers c. 62�77, 3�5 female, 59�72 homogamous. Achenes not seen, ovaries either glabrous, or those of female flowers with myxogenic hairs. Pappus bristles many, equaling corolla, tips barbellate, shaft scabrid, bases with minute patent cilia, not cohering.
Flowering in September.
Distribution:
Rocky sandstone slopes. Only twice recorded: from Groot Rivier Pass in Clanwilliam district and near Matjiesrivier in the Agter Cedarberg.
Fynbos and Succulent Karoo Biomes.
Notes:
H. aureofolium is allied to H. cylindriflorum but can be distinguished by its broadly campanulate, not cylindric campanulate, heads containing c. 60�75 flowers, not 15�35, and involucral bracts with tips c. 2 mm long, not 1 mm.
Taxonomy:
Literature:
Helichrysum aureofolium Hilliard in Flora of southern Africa 33,7 (2): 158 (1983).
Type:
Western Cape, 15 km east of Matjiesrivier in Agter Cedarberg, E. facing slopes of rocky sandstone, 7 ix 1976, Goldblatt 4072 (NU, holo.; E; MO; NBG, iso.).
Synonym(s):
Vouchers:
Compton 5096 (NBG).