Diagnostic characters:

Large solitary heads

Bright yellow bracts

Description:

Subshrub, stock stout, woody, producing vegetative buds, flowering stems several to many from the base, simple below, branching above into the compound inflorescence, up to c. 1 m tall, glandular-setose, hairs red or purple, young parts thinly white-woolly as well, closely leafy, aromatic. Leaves mostly 50�90 x 15�38 mm, slightly smaller on the inflorescence branches, lanceolate or oblong-lanceolate, apex acute or obtuse, apiculate, base broad, cordate-clasping, both surfaces glandular-setose, margins and midline often white-woolly as well. Heads heterogamous, depressed-globose, c. 12�13 mm long, (20�) 24�30 mm across the radiating bracts, several in an open spreading corymbose panicle, the branches often simple, or branching once or twice, leafy. Involucral bracts in c. 9 series, graded, imbricate, inner much exceeding the flowers, glossy, bright golden-yellow inside, golden-brown outside. Receptacle shortly honeycombed. Flowers c. 900�1 200, 125�200 female, 775�975 homogamous. Achenes c. 1 mm long, barrel-shaped, glabrous. Pappus bristles many, about equaling corolla, tips barbellate, shafts scabrid, bases with patent cilia, cohering or not.

Flowering between February and July.

Distribution:

In grassland and scrub, often on damp streamsides or other marshy or well-watered places. Recorded from the highlands of Mpumalanga and Limpopo Province, from Magoebaskloof and New Agatha Forest Reserve near Tzaneen south to the Palwane Hills, Mbabane district, Swaziland.

Grassland and Savanna Biome.

Notes:

Characterized by its leaves, not decurrent on the stem, and large heads with involucral bracts bright yellow inside, golden-brown outside. These characters distinguish it from H. cooperi, with which it is frequently confused. It has also been confused with H. setosum, from which it may be distinguished by its inflorescence branches with red-purple glandular hairs and reduced, distant leaves. It can be distinguished from green-leaved plants of H. mutabile most readily by its generally longer and broader leaves; it is an altogether more robust plant than H. mutabile.

Taxonomy:

Literature: 

Helichrysum aureolum Hilliard in Notes R. bot. Gdn Edinb. 40: 251 (1982).

Type: 

Mpumalanga, 2530 BA, Sabie to Lydenburg, Long Tom Pass, Whisky Spruit, c. 1 980 m, 15 iii 1981, Hilliard & Burtt 14365 (NU, holo.!; E; K; PRE, iso.!).

Synonym(s): 

Vouchers:

Compton 25878 (K; NBG; PRE); Hilliard & Burtt 14206 (E; K; NU; PRE); Kluge 61 (NBG; PRE); Muller & Scheepers 59 (PRE); Rogers 18641 (PRE).

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