Origin of name:

erubescens = blushing, or turning red

Diagnostic characters:

Prostrate
Plant covered in white wool
Bracts pink
Small compact flower heads

Description:

Herbaceous, probably annual or a short-lived perennial, taproot woody, stems 30�300 mm long, several from the crown, prostrate or perhaps sometimes suberect, wiry, simple or loosely branched, white cobwebby-woolly, soon glabrescent, distantly leafy. Leaves mostly 7�22 x 3�10 mm, obovate to elliptic or spathulate, apex obtuse, apiculate, base narrowed, both surfaces white-woolly. Heads homogamous, campanulate, c. 6 x 6 mm, 10 mm when expanded, up to c. 8 in a globose cluster at the branch tips, surrounded by leaves, all webbed together with wool. Involucral bracts in 5�6 series, loosely imbricate, subequal, exceeding the flowers, semi-pellucid, white, tips radiating, obtuse to acute, more or less heavily flecked crimson producing a rosy cast, fading with age. Receptacle nearly smooth. Flowers 30�50, yellow, tipped pink. Achenes not seen, ovaries with myxogenic duplex hairs. Pappus bristles many, equaling corolla, scabrid, bases cohering lightly by patent cilia.

Flowering recorded in June and August.

Distribution:

Sandy beds of watercourses. Known only from the environs of Orupembe and Anabib in the Kaokoveld.

Savanna and Grassland Biomes.

Notes:

Resembles prostrate, sparsely branched specimens of H. candolleanum but is distinguished by its less pointed bracts flecked with crimson, not wholly coloured. Also confused with H. gariepinum, which has heterogamous, not homogamous, heads, and with H. roseo-niveum, which has larger heads.

top

Taxonomy:

Literature:

Helichrysum erubescens Hilliard in Flora of southern Africa 33,7 (2): 174 (1983).

Type: 

Namibia, Kaokoveld, im Rivierlauf 6 Meilen s�dlich Orupembe, 10 vi 1963, Giess & Leippert 7525 (PRE, holo.; M; NBG, iso.).

Synonym(s):

Vouchers: 

Story 5701 (M; PRE); Story 5727 (PRE); Story 5725 (PRE); Hall 368 (NBG); Hall 380 (NBG); Giess 8856 (PRE); Giess & Leippert 7444 (M).