8/2/2019 Helichrysum acrophilum

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Common names:

Origin of name:

acrophilus = loving high regions

Diagnostic characters:

Clusters of small grey spathulate leavesMedium solitary heads (rarely in small groups)Pale yellow bracts

Description:

Small loosely branched, bushy shrub up to c. 300 mm tall,

branches sometimes decumbent then rooting, thinly grey silky-

woolly, young stems distantly and sparsely leafy, old stems withleaves crowded on dwarf axillary shoots. Leaves up to 15 x 6

mm, smaller on the dwarf shoots, spathulate with prominent

midrib, often folded, tip almost truncate, mucronate, recurved,

base much narrowed, sessile, both surfaces thinly grey woolly-felted. Heads homogamous, campanulate, c. 7 x 12 mm across

the radiating bracts, solitary or 25 loosely corymbose at thebranch tips. Involucral bracts in c. 5 series, loosely imbricate,graded, woolly on backs below, inner exceeding flowers, tips

radiating, subacute to obtuse, dull white or pale yellow,sometimes crimson above stereome, outermost sometimesoverlaid palest brown. Receptacle with fimbrils about equaling

ovaries. Flowers 2861, yellow.Achenes 1,25 mm long,cylindric, obscurely ribbed, with myxogenic duplex hairs. Pappus

bristles many, about equaling corolla, scabrid, tips subplumose,bases lightly fused.

Flowering mainly in December and January, but as early as

November and as late as March.

Distribution:

A constituent ofshrub communities in rocky places. Often on

sandy flats or rocky slopes and plateaus, associated withproteoid and restiod elements. On the mountains of the

southwestern Cape (excluding the Peninsula) fromWupperthal, Pakhuis Pass and the Cedarberg to Gydoberg,Skurweberg, Waboomsberg, Matroosberg and the Swartberg.

Also on Anysberg. Between 900 and 1 900 m above sea level,but most records above 1 500 m.

Fynbos, Succulent Karoo and Thicket Biomes.

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Helichrysum acrophilum

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8/2/2019 Helichrysum acrophilum

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Taxonomy:

Literature:

Helichrysum acrophilum H. Bol. Trans. S. Afr. phil. Soc. 18,3:

389 (1907).

Type:

Lectotype: Cape, Koude Bokkeveld, Gydouwberg, 1 800 m, 19January 1897, Schlechter10049 (BOL; BM; E; G; PRE; S; Z,

isolecto.).

Synonym(s):Gnaphalium deltoides Thunb. Mus. Upsal. auct. 1827: 16

(1827), nomen (Thunberg, sheet 19127, UPS).Helichrysum spathulatum Moeser in Bot. Jb. 44: 310 (1910),

nom. illegit.

Vouchers:Compton 8431 (BOL; NBG); Esterhuysen 20007 (BOL; PRE); Oliver5541 (PRE); Stokoe SAM 56574(PRE; SAM); Taylor11693 (PRE).

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