Origin of name:

griseus = grey, pearly-grey
lanatus = woolly

Diagnostic characters:

Compact stunted growth form
Yellow bracts
Leaves yellowish green, small & hairy
Compact small heads

Description:

Well-branched subshrub forming mats up to 250 mm tall and 1 m across, old stems up to 8 mm diam., main branches becoming woody, bare, decumbent and rooting, ultimate branchlets greyish-white woolly, closely leafy at first, more distantly so at flowering. Leaves more or less imbricate, up to 15 x 6 mm, oblong, elliptic, or lanceolate-elliptic, apex obtuse or acute, base broad, half-clasping, margins revolute, both surfaces greyish-white woolly. Heads homogamous, cylindric, c. 3.5 x 1 mm, very many felted together at the base in dense cymose clusters disposed in compact, flattish corymbs terminating the branches. Involucral bracts in c. 4 series, graded, closely imbricate, about equaling flowers, pellucid, not radiating, canary-yellow. Receptacle smooth. Flowers 3�5, yellow. Achenes 0.75 mm, with duplex hairs. Pappus wanting.

Flowering between December and April.

Distribution:

Favours rock sheets and other bare stony areas on mountain tops and slopes. On the mountains, from southern KwaZulu-Natal (Drakensberg, Zuurberg, Ngeli and Mt Currie), through the western Transkei to the Cape Drakensberg about Maclear and Barkly East and the mountains of the E. Cape (King William's Town, Keiskammahoek, Katberg, Hogsback and Great Winterberg).

Grassland and Thicket Biome.

Notes:

Sometimes confused with H. odoratissimum, but that species has leaves generally broadest in the upper half and decurrent on the stem in broad or narrow wings.

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Taxonomy:

Literature: 

Helichrysum griseolanatum Hilliard in Notes R. bot. Gdn. Edinb. 32: 349 (1973), Compositae in Natal 153 (1977).

Type:

Cape, summit Drakensberg near Luhana Pass, alt. 8500 ft., 25 May 1897, Galpin 2325 (BOL, holo.; PRE, iso.).

Synonym(s): 

H. epapposum var robustum H. Bol. in Trans. R. Soc. S. Afr. 1: 155 (1909). Type: lecto as above.

H. inerme var. brachycladum Moeser in Bot. Jb. 44: 246 (1910). Lectotype: KwaZulu-Natal, East Griqualand, Mt Currie, Tyson 1255 (Z; K).

Vouchers: 

Baur s.n. (SAM); Hilliard 3901 (BOL; E; K; NU); Hilliard & Burtt 6622 (E; K; NBG; NU; MO; PRE; S).