Origin of name:

deserticola = dweller in deserts

Diagnostic characters:

Compact herb
Small woolly leaves
Small heads
Bracts straw-coloured

Description:

Probably perennial, taproot becoming thick (4 mm diam.) and woody, stems many, densely tufted from the crown, c. 20-60 mm long, simple or subsimple, grey-woolly, leafy. Leaves mostly 4-10 x 1-4 mm, elliptic-spathulate, apex subacute, sometimes folded lengthwise and recurved, base narrowed, half-clasping, margins somewhat undulate, both surfaces thickly white-woolly. Heads heterogamous or rarely homogamous, c. 3.5-4 x 2-2.5 mm, campanulate, few to many crowded in terminal glomerules 5-10 mm across, surrounded by leaves webbed to the outer involucral bracts. Involucral bracts in 3-4 series, subequal, equaling flowers, not radiating, tips of outer obtuse, inner abruptly acute and apiculate, opaque, white, outer at least tinged golden-brown. Receptacle very shortly honeycombed. Flowers 14-38, (0-) 1-3 female, 14-36 homogamous, yellow, tipped pink. Achenes 0.75 mm, glabrous. Pappus bristles many, equaling corolla, tips scabrid, bases nude, not cohering.

Flowering between July and October.

Distribution:

Grows on sandy or rocky flats.  Recorded only from southernmost Namibia (Kaukausib, Rote Kuppe, Garub).

Desert Biome.

Notes:

Rarely collected.

Closely allied to H. obtusum but distinguished by the opaque white tips to the involucral bracts, the innermost of which are abruptly contracted into a sharp apiculus.

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Taxonomy:

Literature:

Helichrysum deserticola Hilliard in Flora of southern Africa 33,7 (2): 168 (1983).

 

Type:

Namibia, Gubub [Garub?], sandflats, 18 x 1922, Dinter 4115 (SAM, holo.; BM; G; Z, iso.).

 

Synonym(s):

 

 

Vouchers: 

Dinter 3814 (BOL; PRE); Range 1130 (SAM).