Common names:

Golden everlasting, Goue sewejaartjie (A), toane-ntja, toane-poli (SS), imphempho-emhlophe indondokazane (Z), UmGilane (Z), inkodlwane (Z)

Origin of name:

aureonitens = golden shining; shiny gold or lustrous gold

Diagnostic characters:

Grey hairy leaves with sharp black tips

Unbranched stems

Small compact inflorescences

Bright yellow bracts

Description:

Tufted perennial herb, whole plant greyish-white appressed woolly, stems up to c. 300 mm tall, slender, simple or sparingly branched from a creeping stock, leafy throughout. Leaves up to 20 (�30) x 3 (�6) mm, slightly smaller upwards, oblong or oblong-spathulate, apex subacute or obtuse, base broad, half-clasping, margins flat or subrevolute. Heads heterogamous, campanulate, c. 4 x 3 mm, up to c. 30 in compact corymbose clusters at the branch tips. Involucral bracts in c. 3 series, graded, imbricate, mostly obtuse, inner about equaling flowers, not radiating, outer shorter, woolly at base, all pellucid, yellow often washed pale brown. Receptacle with fimbrils about equaling ovaries. Flowers 37�57, 13�23 female, 21�37 homogamous. Achenes less than 0,5 mm, glabrous. Pappus bristles many, equaling corolla, scabrid, bases cohering by patent cilia.

Flowering between September and February.

Distribution:

Common, often forming extensive colonies visible from afar as grey patches in grassland. Widespread, from Huila in Angola to Gauteng and Mpumalanga Highveld and eastern highlands, Swaziland, western Lesotho, Free State, KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape about as far south as King William's Town and the Amatola Mts. Also recorded from southernmost Mozambique.

Grassland and Savanna Biomes.

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Taxonomy:

Literature:

Helichrysum aureonitens Sch. Bip. in Flora, Regensburg 27: 680 (1844); Harv. in F.C. 3: 247 (1865); Moeser in Bot. Jb. 44: 285 (1910); Compton, F1. Swaziland 628 (1976); Hilliard, Compositae in Natal 171 (1977).

Type: 

Natal Bay, July, Krauss 280 (P, holo.; G; K; M; TCD; iso.).

Synonym(s):

Gnaphalium aureonitens (Sch. Bip.) Sch. Bip. in Bot. Ztg 3: 173 (1845).

Helichrysum helodes Hiern, Cat. Afr. Welw. Pl. 3: 561 (1898). Types: Angola, Huilla, Morro de Lopollo, Welwitsch 3502 (BM) and 3503 (BM; K).

Vouchers:

Codd 3180 (NU; PRE); Devenish 1603 (E; MO; NU); Moll 2547 (NU; PRE).