a bush 3–4 ft. high; branches more or less spreading, minutely woolly-tomentose and hirsute; leaves usually very much crowded, particularly upwards and concealing the stem, more or less oblong, obtuse with a callous point, entire or rarely bluntly 3-toothed, obtuse at the base, 1–2 in. long, 3–9 lin. broad, distinctly veined, very minutely rugulose, villous or tomentose when young, then glabrescent to glabrous; heads subsessile among the crowded top leaves, terminal or overtopped by young branches and thus apparently lateral, solitary or in clusters of 2–3, 1–1 1/2 in. long, 1–2 in. in diam., with a definite involucre of imbricate barren bracts exceeding the perianths; peduncle up to 2 1/2 lin. long, stout, densely bracteate; receptacle slightly convex, 4–6 lin. in diam.; barren bracts of peduncle and involucre gradually increasing upwards, the innermost much produced, lanceolate to narrow-lanceolate, acute to (the inner) long- and subulate-acuminate and up to more than 1 in. long, finely tomentose or pubescent to glabrescent, ciliate and the long acumina of the inner bracts more or less penicillate; floral bracts narrowly lanceolate, very long-acuminate, 6–7 lin. long, densely and long-tomentose up to 2–3 lin., then finely pubescent, ciliate and subpenicillate; adult flower-bud about 1/2 in. long; perianth-tube 2–3 lin. long, slightly widened at the upper end, glabrous; adaxial and lateral claws united into a slender straight sheath, 3–4 lin. long, flattened out and recurved at the upper end, at length sometimes splitting downwards, like the free abaxial claw loosely villous; limbs deflexed, lanceolate, acute, 1 lin. long, hirsute; hypogynous scales linear, 3/4 lin. long; ovary oblong, whitish-pubescent, 3/4 lin. long, surrounded by white hairs 3/4 lin. long; style straight or nearly so, finely filiform from a stouter base, capillary upwards, 10–12 lin. long, glabrous; stigma cylindric, very slender, slightly thickened at the base, 2/3 lin. long; fruit ellipsoid, 3 1/2 lin. long, sparingly and minutely puberulous. null
