Origin of name:

nimbi = clouds (rain), mist.
cola = dweller

Diagnostic characters:

Compact flower heads
Bright yellow bracts
Leaves lanceolate

Description:

Tufted perennial herb forming small mats, main stems decumbent, rooting, flowering stems erect, 100-150 mm long, simple, densely leafy near base, becoming distantly so then bracteate near tips. Leaves mostly 25-40 x 4-7 mm, half the length petiolar, blade elliptic-lanceolate, often conduplicate and falcate, tip acute, base narrowed to a broad flat clasping petiole, both surfaces grey woolly-felted. Heads homogamous, cylindric, 3-4 x 1.5-2 mm, many closely congested and felted together into a flat-topped glomerule 15-20 mm across at the stem tip. Involucral bracts in 3-4 series, graded, loosely imbricate, about equaling flowers, pellucid, pale golden brown, tips very obtuse, concave, not radiating. Receptacle shortly honeycombed. Flowers 4-6, yellow. Achenes 0.75 mm long, with myxogenic duplex hairs. Pappus bristles many, equaling corolla, upper part subplumose, yellow, bases cohering strongly by patent cilia.

Flowering in February.

Distribution:

Known from only four collections on the high Lesotho plateau: the summit of Mount aux Sources, at the top of Mashai Pass and the top of Sani Pass at c. 2 800 m, and from Tselanyane, Butha Buthe district, c. 2 750 m, in stony turf.

Grassland Biome.

Notes:

Similar in aspect to H. subfalcatum, with which it may be found growing, but easily distinguished by its different indumentum, homogamous heads, and different pappus.

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Taxonomy:

Literature:

Helichrysum nimbicola Hilliard in Notes R. bot. Gdn Edinb. 40: 262 (1982).

 

Type:

Natal-Lesotho border, Sani Pass, 2850 m, on steep stony grass slopes, 18 ii 1973, Hilliard 5334 (NU, holo.; E; K; MO; PRE; S, iso.).

 

Synonym(s): 

 

 

Vouchers:

Hilliard & Burtt 10479 (NU); Jacot Guillarmod 4223 (RUH).