a shrub with loosely and diffusely procumbent glabrous branches to over 1 1/2 ft. long; leaves spreading, 2–3 1/4 in. long, 1 1/2–2 lin. broad, linear, acute, not or very slightly attenuated at the base, often shortly decurrent, indistinctly veined, but with a distinct midrib, green, glabrous; heads solitary at the bases of branches, often contracted into a short stipes, up to over 1 1/2 in. long, and 2 in. in diam.; receptacle 9 lin. high, conical; paleæ ovate, acute; involucral bracts about 7-seriate, densely hirsute; outer ovate, obtuse, finely and adpressedly pubescent to glabrous; inner oblong or spathulate-oblong, rufo-pubescent to silky-tomentose, equalling the flowers or slightly shorter; perianth-sheath up to 7 lin. long, much dilated, from above the middle downwards, 3-keeled and 7-nerved at the base, thinly membranous from below, glabrous; lip 2 lin. long, 3-toothed, cylindric, glabrous, excepting at the fugaciously hairy tips, ciliate; teeth subequal, 1/2 lin. long; stamens subsessile; anthers linear, 1 lin. long; apical glands 1/6 lin. long, ovate, obtuse, swollen on the inner face; style 9 lin. long, strongly curved to sickle-shaped, compressed in the lower half, bulbously thickened at the base, glabrous; stigma 1 1/4 lin. long, obtuse, slightly bent at the junction with the style; young fruit 4 lin. long, cylindric, covered with long brown hairs. null
