main stem underground, throwing out a number of leaf- and flower-bearing prostrate or ascending mostly divided glabrous branches; leaves 1 1/4–2 1/4 in. long, 2/3 lin. broad, linear to acicular, acute, shortly decurrent, glabrous; heads lateral, solitary or in often large clusters, but then usually only one of each cluster in flower, the others forming small buds, 1 1/2 in. long, about 1/2 in. in diam., obovoid and obtuse when young, contracted at the base into a scaly stipes or peduncle up to 5 lin. long; involucral bracts 9–10-seriate, very densely whitish silky-pubescent to tomentose and ciliate; outer ovate, obtuse; inner oblong or spathulate-oblong, villous at the apex, exceeding the flowers; perianth-sheath 9 lin. long, dilated from the middle downwards, 3-keeled and 7-nerved in the lower half, thinly membranous above, glabrous; lip 2 lin. long, 3-toothed above, oblong, glabrous, excepting at the fugaciously villous tips; teeth subequal, 1/4 lin. long; stamens all fertile; filaments 1/6 lin. long, swollen; anthers linear, 1 1/2 lin. long; apical glands 1/8 lin. long, ovate; ovary 2 lin. long, covered with long reddish-brown hairs; style 10 lin. long, strongly curved to sickle-shaped, slender, subulate upwards, from the widened and bulbously thickened base keeled; stigma 1 1/2 lin. long, subulate, obtuse, obscurely bent at the junction with the style. null
