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Origin of name:
Named after the locality at Ngome forest in northern KwaZulu-Natal.
Description:
Perennial herb, stock slender, woody, flowering stems several from the crown, simple, erect to c. 300 mm, loosely greyish-white woolly, leafy throughout. Radical leaves rosetted, up to c. 90 x 7 mm, linear-lanceolate, apex very acute, base broad, clasping, upper surface thinly pilose with coarse jointed hairs, lower greyish-white woolly; cauline leaves similar but smaller and thinly woolly above at first, passing upwards into bracts, the uppermost with a small scarious appendage, erect, imbricate, very shortly decurrent. Heads homogamous, campanulate, c. 5 mm long, several in a tight subglobose cluster up to 20 mm across webbed at base with wool. Involucral bracts in c. 6 series, slightly graded, loosely imbricate, exceeding the flowers, radiating, glossy, inner tawny yellow, obtuse, apiculate, outer acute, tipped brown. Receptacle with fimbrils at least equaling the ovaries. Flowers c. 33. Achenes not seen, ovaries glabrous. Pappus bristles many, about equaling the corolla, tips barbellate, bases not cohering (but material young).
It was in young flower in mid-January.
Distribution:
Known only from the type collection made at Ngome in northern KwaZulu-Natal. The plant is common around the edges of rock sheets in grassland where water oozes to the surface. It should be looked for elsewhere in northern KwaZulu-Natal and in Mpumalanga.
Grassland Biome.
Notes:
Close allied to H. cephaloideum, which is found in drier grassland. H. ingomense is easily recognized even in the vegetative state by its linear-lanceolate, very acute leaves that soon lose the wool from the upper surface.
Taxonomy:
Literature:
Helichrysum ingomense Hilliard in Notes R. bot. Gdn Edinb. 40: 255 (1982).
Type:
KwaZulu-Natal, Vryheid distr., Ngome Forest Reserve, c. 4 000 ft, 12 i 1969, Hilliard & Burtt 5925 (NU, holo.; E; K; NH, iso.).
Synonym(s):
Helichrysum sp.; Hilliard, Compositae in Natal 189 (1977).
Vouchers:
Hilliard & Burtt 5925