Pteronia oblanceolata flowerheads

The stalkless flowerheads of Pteronia oblanceolata grow solitary or in small clusters from stem-tips. They are narrowly cylindrical, the pointed involucral bracts in up to five rows. The heads are about 15 mm in diameter and up to 20 mm long.

The bracts are initially green, later whitish with blackish purple near the tips or down the centre. The bract margins are wide, whitish translucent and papery. There are no ray florets, a head containing up to twenty tubular disc florets. Their corollas are white, the anthers yellow and the style branches flattened.

Flowering happens from late winter to after midspring.

The fruits are covered in long, soft hairs, the pappuses straw-coloured.

The simple leaves of P. oblanceolata are opposite and sessile, their oblanceolate to obovate blades bluntly pointed to nearly rounded, sometimes with a tiny mucro protruding. The thickish, fleshy blades are smooth, leathery and hairless, coloured green, grey green or blue green. The midribs are sometimes visible, the blades slightly concave above.

Leaf dimensions are about 10 mm long and 5 mm wide (Vlok and Schutte-Vlok, 2015; Bond and Goldblatt, 1984; iNaturalist; https://www.worldfloraonline.org).