a slender low-growing subdecumbent or erect bush; branches glabrous; leaves scattered, exposing the stem, on decumbent branches more or less turned skywards, linear, subobtuse with a callous point, narrowed towards the base, entire, flat or with recurved margins, indistinctly veined, glabrous; heads usually solitary, rarely 2-nate, exserted from (rarely overtopped by) the uppermost leaves, peduncled, 1 1/2–1 3/4 in. long excluding the styles, and about as wide, with a definite involucre of barren closely imbricate bracts; peduncle 1/2 to almost 1 in. long, covered with spreading ovate acute pubescent or finely tomentose bracts, 2–3 lin. long; receptacle cylindric, about 1 in. long, 1 1/2 lin. in diam.; barren and fertile bracts similar, ovate or (the inner) elliptic to obovate, acute to (the inner) acutely acuminate, up to 6 lin. long, 2 1/2–3 1/2 lin. broad, tomentose and hirsute-ciliate; adult flower-bud 1 1/4 in. long; perianth-tube 3 1/2–4 lin. long, rather wide from a narrow base, glabrous below, pubescent upwards; adaxial and lateral claws permanently united into an upwardly flattened-out and revolute sheath, about 3/4 in. long, like the apically adherent or free abaxial claw softly hirsute all over; limbs ovate-oblong, acute, 1 1/2 lin. long, hirsute, at length inflexed on the revolute top of the claw; anthers subsessile, ovate-oblong, 3/4 lin. long; hypogynous scales linear, subacute, 1 lin. long; ovary oblong, under 1 lin. long, minutely greyish-pubescent, surrounded by whitish hairs, 1 lin. long; style 1 3/4 in. long, slender and acutely quadrangular upwards, glabrous; stigma shortly conical from a broad base, somewhat oblique, subobtuse, up to 1 lin. long. null
