Syncarpha

Syncarpha is a genus of perennials in the Asteraceae family. Several of the species feature among the popular everlasting dry flower harvests, sometimes bigger than the species can safely provide in terms of their survival needs.

The leaves are simple, alternate, sessile and densely hairy or felted with entire margins.

The usually large flowerheads are discoid, solitary or in small groups, surrounded by about nine rows of usually fringed involucral bracts. The receptacle is fringed but has no scales. The inner bracts usually have coloured appendages in white, yellow, brown or pink.

The tiny, bisexual, disc florets have tubes that widen at the top, ending in yellow, lance-shaped lobes.

The oblong fruits have papillae on their surfaces. Their pappuses facilitating wind dispersal generally have feathery parachutes arranged in a ring.

The about 25 species are all endemic to South African fynbos.

The plant in picture is Syncarpha eximia (Leistner, (Ed.), 2000; Manning, 2007).