PLATE 549. 



HELICHRYSUM GRISETJM, Sond. (PI. Cap. Vol. Ill, p. 237.) 

 Natural Order COMPOSITE. 



An erect herbaceous plant with simple unbranched stem, bearing numerous 

 flower heads in a corymbose cyme at its apex. Leaves, radical ones petiolate, 

 ovate to oblong, long tapering to base, shortly so to an acute apex, the petiole 

 varying much in length, sometimes reaching to 4 inches or more, usually much 

 shorter, narrowly winged ; the blade up to 8 inches in length, 3 inches wide ; 

 stem leaves 2-3, stem-clasping, ovate to oblong, 3-7-veined, all densely white 

 woolly-tomentose beneath, pilose on upper surface, the uppermost very small and 

 lanceolate. Heads very many, discoid, the primary branches of the inflorescence 

 loosely arranged and sub-umbellate, each bearing a cluster of pedicellate many- 

 flowered heads at its apex ; peduncle and pedicels densely woolly-tomentose. 

 Involucre subglobose at base, its scales imbricate, their bases oblong and very 

 woolly, then contracted and ending in a long glabrous, reddish-purple membranous 

 linear-lanceolate apex. Receptacle minutely fimbrilliferous. Florets tubular, 

 5-toothed ; anthers sagittate ; style branches obtuse, truncate. Achenes not seen. 



Habitat: NATAL: Gueinzius 322 ; 590; near Durban, Gerrard fy McKen 307 ; 

 Malvern, 500 to 600 ft. alt., October, M. Franks (in Colonial Herbarium 12426); 

 same locality Wood (in Colonial Herbarium 12056.) 



A note in the Flora Capensis says : " Allied to H. latifolium from which it 

 differs in the evidently petiolate root-leaves, the much more diffuse inflorescence, 

 and especially in the involucral scales. * * * There is usually a single narrow- 

 lanceolate acuminate floral leaf about the middle of the peduncle, and one at the 

 base of the cyme." In our specimens the leaf at the middle of the peduncle is 

 not as here stated, but is in the whole of the specimens ovate acute. The only 

 localities quoted for this species in the Flora Capensis are those given by 

 Gueinzius & McKen, and we have not in our collection any specimen from outside 

 Natal, though it is quite probable that it may occur in Pondoland also. 



Fig. 1 , flower head ; 2, involucral scale ; 3, a floret ; 4, three of the stamens ; 

 5, style ; all enlarged. 



