Selago myriophylla

Selago myriophylla is a shrub that branches sparsely to 1 m. The small and narrow, dark green leaves are densely clustered upon the stems. Myriophylla means many leaves in Greek.

The white flowers are clustered in rounded, branched heads at stem tips. The flowers grow on short stalks, are two-lipped with uneven petal length; the petals being oblong with rounded tips and sometimes recurving. The flower tube is about 2 mm long, the corolla diameter about 4 mm. This specimen was photographed south of Calitzdorp in May.

The often two-lipped Selago flowers differ from those of Agathosma plants that are radially symmetric.

The species distribution is in the Western Cape from the western Karoo to the Eastern Cape as far as the Kouga Mountains.

The habitat is fynbos and renosterveld. The species is not considered threatened in habitat early in the twenty first century (Vlok and Schutte-Vlok, 2015; iNaturalist; http://redlist.sanbi.org).