Eriocephalus purpureus fruiting

The white woolly fruits of Eriocephalus purpureus become conspicuous at the end of the flowering.

Once this happens and the purplish ray florets are gone, the species is hard to differentiate from E. ericoides distributed in an overlapping and contiguous region to the east (Manning, 2007; Bond and Goldblatt, 1984; iNaturalist; JSTOR).