Common names:

Isicwe (Z)

Origin of name:

pedunculatum = provided with a penducle

Diagnostic characters:

Large heads
Large compact branched inflorescence
Bicoloured leaves, silky below

Description:

Perennial herb, rootstock woody, some silky-brown wool hidden in the axils of the leaf bases, stem solitary, simple, erect to c. 500 mm, white-woolly, leafy below, becoming bracteate upwards. Leaves mostly radical, mostly 80�130 x 20�40 mm, elliptic, apex acute, tapering below to a broad, flat, clasping petiole-like base, upper surface glabrous, lower with a white silky-woolly-felted skin-like indumentum, stem leaves similar but soon sessile, passing rapidly into distant linear-lanceolate acuminate bracts. Heads homogamous, campanulate, c. 7�8 x 6�8 mm, many in a compact or loose terminal corymbose panicle. Involucral bracts in c. 5 series, graded, inner about equaling flowers, loosely imbricate, oblong, loosely woolly below, tips pellucid, subacute, reddish brown, crisped, not radiating. Receptacle with fimbrils exceeding ovaries. Flowers 30�65. Achenes not seen, ovaries glabrous. Pappus bristles many, about equaling corolla, scabrid, bases lightly fused.

 

Flowering between November and February.

Distribution:

Grows in grassland. Ranges from southern Lesotho to the southern Transkei and Eastern Cape with isolated records from Graaff-Reinet (Cave Mountain) Great Swartberg, Prince Albert div., Uitenhage and Spiegel River, Riversdale.

Grassland, Savanna, Thicket and Nama Karoo Biomes.

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Notes:

Distinguished from H. pilosellum by its larger heads and leaves, glabrous above, silky below.

Taxonomy:

Literature:

Helichrysum pedunculatum Hilliard & Burtt in Notes R. bot. Gdn Edinb. 32: 356 (1973).

 

Type:

Cape, Beaufort distr., Kat River valley, 1860, Cooper 415 (E, holo.; BM; K; NH; Z, iso.).

 

Synonym(s):

H. pilosellum sensu Less., Syn. Comp. 297 (1832) quoad descr. excl. syn., non (L.f.) Less.

H. pedunculare sensu DC., Prodr. 6: 198 (1838) quoad descr. excl. syn.; Harv. in F.C. 3: 238 (1865) excl. syn. et var.; Moeser in Bot. Jb. 44: 262 (1910); Batten & Bokelmann, Wild Flow. E. Cape Prov. 154 plate 123 (1966), non (L.) DC.

 

Vouchers:

Barker 1159 (NBG); Burchell 7201 (K); Dieterlen 1078 (K; PRE); Galpin 1696 (PRE); Pegler 1322 (BOL; PRE).