Origin of name:

basalticum = growing in basaltic rock

Diagnostic characters:

Velvety leaves, large and broad
Basal leaf rosette present
Medium-sized heads, often felted together at the base
Compact inflorescence

Description:

Perennial herb with a cluster of very short branches at the crown, each producing a rosette of leaves, flowering stems several, lateral, simple or branched, prostrate, 40-120 (-400) mm long, grey-woolly, leafy. Radical leaves up to 40 x 15 mm, obovate-oblong, apex obtuse, base slightly narrowed, half-clasping, both surfaces thickly grey-woolly; cauline leaves similar but commonly smaller and narrowly oblong. Heads heterogamous, campanulate, c. 4 x 4 mm, many felted together at the base in a congested, rounded, terminal, corymbose cluster 15-20 mm across, occasionally up to 4 of these clusters in turn closely agglomerated. Involucral bracts in 3 series, loosely imbricate, about equaling the flowers, not radiating, translucent, tawny-yellow, mostly tipped golden brown. Receptacle honeycombed. Flowers c. 40-70, c. 27-38 female, 22-35 homogamous, yellow. Achenes 0.75 mm, glabrous. Pappus bristles many, delicate, tips barbellate, bases with patent cilia, not cohering.

Flowering between February and April.

Distribution:

Forms small mats on basalt sheets and bare stony ground. Along the high Drakensberg, from Mont aux Sources (Bergville district, KwaZulu-Natal) to Naude's Nek in the Cape Drakensberg north of Maclear.

Grassland Biome.

Notes:

Rarely collected.  Close to H. flanaganii, which form tufted mats of closely leafy branchlets with small obovate leaves and flowering stems erect.

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Taxonomy:

Literature: 

Helichrysum basalticum Hilliard in Notes R. bot. Gdn Edinb. 32: 344 (1973), Compositae in Natal 164 (1977).

 

Type: 

Lesotho, Phutha, near Mokhotlong, c. 10000 ft. alt., Compton 21570 (NBG, holo.).

 

Synonym(s):

Gnaphalium alticolum Compton in Jl S. Afr. Bot. 19: 113 (1953), non Helichrysum alticolum H. Bol., 1907. Type: Lesotho, Phutha, near Mokhotlong, c. 10000 ft. alt., Compton 21570 (NBG, holo.).

Gnaphalium alticolum Compton in Jl S. Afr. Bot. 19: 113 (1953), non Helichrysum alticolum H. Bol., 1907. Type as above.

 

Vouchers: 

Galpin 14102 (NH; S); Hilliard 5340 (E; K; M; NBG; NU; PRE; S); Hilliard & Burtt 6725 (E; K; M; MO; NBG; NU; PRE; S); Nordenstam 2136 (S); Smook 7110 (PRE).