Origin of name:

mariepscopicum is named after Mariepskop in the Drakensberg of Mpumalanga where this plant was first collected.

Diagnostic characters:

White bracts with maroon / brown tips
Large solitary heads

Description:

Tufted perennial herb or shrublet c. 150�300 mm tall, stems glandular pubescent, closely leafy throughout. Leaves mostly 10�30 x 2�5 mm, becoming smaller and more distant upwards and passing into scale-tipped bracts, oblong or lanceolate-oblong, apex obtuse to acute, apiculate, base broad, half-clasping, both surfaces glandular-pubescent, occasionally also cobwebby below, margins and main vein greyish-white woolly or wool wanting. Heads heterogamous, campanulate, c. 12 mm long, double that across the radiating bracts, solitary at branchlet tips. Involucral bracts in c. 10 series, graded, imbricate, inner much exceeding flowers, acute, glossy white, all but innermost tipped brown, sometimes with a rosy cast. Receptacle shortly honeycombed. Flowers 164�277, 10�31 female, 134�252 homogamous. Achenes 1 mm long, glabrous or hairy, not myxogenic. Pappus bristles barbellate above, bases not cohering.

Flowers between September and April, at its peak between October and January.

Distribution:

Grows in damp mountain grassland particularly among rock outcrops. Recorded from a small area of the Mpumalanga Drakensberg from Mariepskop to Mount Anderson and Elandshoogte near Machadodorp.

Grassland and Savanna Biomes.

Taxonomy:

Literature:

Helichrysum mariepscopicum Hilliard in Notes R. bot. Gdn Edinb. 40: 258 (1982).

Type:

Mpumalanga, Pilgrim's Rest distr., Mariepskop, c. 2 300 m, 23 i 1968, Hilliard 4726 (NU holo.; E; K; MO; PRE; S, iso.).

 

Synonym(s): 

 

 

Vouchers:

Codd & De Winter 3336 (K; NU; PRE); Galpin 14532 (NU; PRE); Hilliard & Burtt 6011 (E; K; M; MO; NU; PRE; S); Merxm�ller 570 (K).

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