Origin of name:

drakensbergense = from the Drakensberg

Diagnostic characters:

Compact inflorescence on long stalks
Light yellow bracts
Plant covered in white wool
Large heads

Description:

Bushy perennial herb or subshrub up to c.400 mm tall, stems often decumbent at base and rooting, simple below, forking several times above, grey-woolly, branches erect, leafy in lower half becoming pedunculoid upwards. Leaves up to 90 x 30 mm, more or less spathulate, apex rounded or subacute, petiole-like base expanded below and half-clasping, both surfaces closely grey-woolly. Heads homogamous, campanulate, c. 6 x 4 mm, many felted together at the base in a very congested, flattish corymbose cluster 20�25 mm across. Involucral bracts in c. 3 series, loosely imbricate, about equaling flowers, not radiating, glossy, straw-coloured. Receptacle with pit margins thickened. Flowers c. 15�28, yellow. Achenes 1.5 mm long, with duplex hairs. Pappus bristles copious, delicate, scabrid above, bases lightly cohering by patent cilia.

Flowers from November to January.

Distribution:

It forms large but often highly localized colonies on grass slopes or in scrub, between c. 1 525 and 2 740 m above sea level. Known only from a small area of the KwaZulu-Natal Drakensberg, from Garden Castle Forest Reserve and Sani Pass, in Underberg district, north to Cleft Peak in Bergville district.

Grassland Biome.

Taxonomy:

Literature: 

Helichrysum drakensbergense Killick in Bothalia 7: 23 (1958); Hilliard, Compositae in Natal 162 (1977).

Type: 

KwaZulu-Natal, Bergville distr., Cathedral Peak Forest Research Station, below Organ Pipes Pass, Killick 1879 (PRE, holo.; K, iso.).

Synonym(s):

Vouchers: 

Hilliard 4826 (E; K; NH; NU; PRE; S); Hilliard & Burtt 7045 (E; K; NU; S); Schelpe 497 (NU); Wright 432 (E; K; NH; NU).

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