Helichrysum

[Annuals, biennials, perennials,] subshrubs, or shrubs (often aromatic), mostly 20–80 cm; taprooted. Stems usually 1, usually erect, sometimes decumbent to procumbent (± woolly-tomentose, usually stipitate- or sessile-glandular as well). Leaves cauline; alternate; petiolate [sessile]; blades ovate [spatulate to lanceolate or linear], bases cuneate to truncate [usually clasping and/or decurrent], margins entire (sometimes revolute), faces concolor [bicolor], usually gray to white and tomentose or sericeous [adaxial sometimes greenish and glabrescent], sometimes stipitate- or sessile-glandular as well. Heads disciform or discoid, in glomerules in corymbiform arrays. Involucres campanulate, 4–8 mm. Phyllaries in 3–5[–7] series, whitish [stramineous, orange, reddish, or pinkish] (opaque or hyaline, usually shiny; stereomes green, usually sessile-glandular distally). Receptacles flat, glabrous, epaleate. Peripheral (pistillate) florets 0 or 1–2 (fewer than bisexual): corollas yellowish. Inner (bisexual) florets 3–30[–50+]; corollas usually yellowish. Cypselae ± columnar, faces usually smooth, sometimes papillate (roughened by raised, imbricate tips of epidermal cells), sometimes with 4–6 longitudinal ridges, glabrous [± strigose or myxogenic, papilliform hairs]; pappi readily falling, of 12–20 distinct or loosely coherent basally, barbellate [subplumose] bristles in 1 series. x = 7.

Distribution

mostly Old World, especially s Africa and Madagascar.

Discussion

Species about 600 (1 in the flora).

Selected References

None.

Lower Taxa

Helichrysum petiolare