a small shrub with procumbent branches and numerous ascending branchlets; branchlets mostly rather slender, minutely greyish crisped-pubescent or tomentose and more or less hirsute; leaves rather crowded, obliquely spreading, not concealing the stem, linear- to narrowly elliptic-oblong or oblanceolate, acute with a callous point, rarely minutely 2–3-toothed at the apex, slightly narrowed towards the base, 5–10 lin. long, 2–3 lin. broad, faintly but distinctly veined, sparingly crisped-pubescent and adpressedly hirsute when young, soon glabrescent and usually at length quite glabrous; heads solitary or in clusters of 2–4, terminal or overtopped by young branches and then apparently lateral, subsessile, turbinate, rather lax when fully out, 5–6 lin. long, 6–8 lin. broad, with a definite involucre of imbricate barren bracts; peduncle very short, covered with ovate acute tomentose bracts passing into those of the involucre; receptacle flat; involucral bracts ovate, acuminate, up to 2 lin. long, tomentose; floral bracts obovate, abruptly and shortly acuminate or cuspidate, 2–3 lin. long, densely tomentose; adult flower-bud about 5 1/2 lin. long; perianth-tube cylindric, 2 1/2–3 lin. long, pubescent upwards; adaxial and lateral claws united into a straight villous or shortly hirsute sheath, about 1 1/2–2 lin. long, with free recurved tips, soon separating downwards; abaxial claw free, otherwise like the others; limbs ovate-oblong, acute, not quite 1 lin. long, hirsute; anthers sessile, linear-oblong, 1/2 lin. long; hypogynous scales subulate, hyaline, 1/2 lin. long; ovary oblong, under 1 lin. long, finely pubescent below, gradually passing into the style; style 6–7 lin. long, filiform, tapering upwards; stigma oblong-cylindric, obtuse, 1/3 lin. long; fruit ellipsoid, whitish, 3 1/2 lin. long, subacute, not beaked. null
