Elichrysum| LXXI, COMPOSITE, 561 
Var. mossamedense. 
A low wiry herb, annual or perhaps persisting for several 
years; rootstock long, descending in a more or less twisted 
manner, hard or somewhat woody, giving off at its crown several 
prostrate or decumbent stems; stems nearly simple below or more 
or less branched, floccose-lanate or glabrescent below, rather 
slender; leaves alternate, sublinear or oblanceolate, obtuse or 
somewhat pointed and often nigro-apiculate at the apex, not 
very narrow at the sessile non-decurrent base, more or less hoary- 
woolly on both faces or sub-obsoletely so, nearly flat or with 
revolute margins, rigid, } to 1 in. long, entire or slightly wavy on 
the margins; capitula rosy-red when young, yellowish at the 
time of flowering, campanulate-oblong, + to } in. long, subsessile 
or sessile, usually with some loose wool at the base, about 
20-flowered, homogamous, crowded many or several together in 
sessile terminal hemispherical or subglobose clusters + to # in. in 
diameter ; involucral scales pluriseriate, imbricate, obovate or 
oblanceolate, thinly hyaline and white (in the dry state) except 
the unguiculate basal part, glabrous, rounded and occasionally 
cleft at the white apex, suberect or those of the outer capitula 
often with squarrose or revolute tips, usually somewhat rosy 
about the middle, the innermost ones about equalling the corollas, 
the outer ones successively rather shorter; florets all hermaphrodite; 
corolla narrowly tubular, glabrous, yellow ; ovary scattered with 
minute glands, otherwise glabrous; pappus pale-straw-coloured 
or whitish (in the dry state), setose, equalling the corolla, brittle, 
the sete slender, nearly smooth, deciduous; achenes scattered 
with small glands; receptacle small, naked or scattered with 
minute scales, somewhat alveolate. 
MossaMEDES.—In sandy places at the banks of the river Bero, very 
plentiful ; fl. and fr. July 1859. No. 3499. In sandy bushy places at 
the banks of the river Maiombo, sparingly; fl. and fr. Oct. 1859. 
No. 3500. In dry sandy places at the banks of the river Bero, rather 
rare ; fl. July 1859. A subglabrate elongated form. No. 3494. 
2. E. helodes Hiern, sp. n. 
An erect herb, with the habit of a Filago, 6 to 12 in. high, 
more or less covered with a creamy-white felt ; root wiry, sinuous, 
with slender fibres ; stem slender, simple below, branched in the 
upper part; branches erect or ascending, leafy, slender; leaves 
alternate, sometimes fasciculate, sublinear, obtusely pointed with 
a minute glabrous dark-brown apiculus at the apex, sessile at the 
rather broad not or scarcely decurrent base, } to # in. long, the 
margin entire and more or less thickened beneath; capitula 
broadly campanulate or sub-hemispherical, about 34, to 5 in. 
long, woolly at the base, glabrous above, heterogamous, discoid, 
on very short woolly pedicels clustered in very dense branched 
erect subglobose cymes 4 to } in, in diameter terminating short 
lateral leafy branches or on short axillary peduncles; flowers 
yellowish ; hermaphrodite florets tubular, 15 to 18, some of them 
