Helichrysum trilineatum

Helichrysum trilineatum is commonly known as the social everlasting and in Southern Sotho as Hukobetsi, a name for which no translation could be found. It is a much-branched, rounded and wider spreading than tall shrub, up to around 1 m in height. Old branches become leafless and woody with leaf scars. Young branchlets are grey to whitish from woolliness and are densely leaved. These plants are very variable in leaf size and hairy covering.

The flowerheads are bell-shaped, growing in stem-tip clusters. Their involucral bracts grow in about five graded and overlapping rings around the disc florets. The outer ones are pale golden brown, the inner ones blunt-tipped and yellow. The disc florets may be up to 60 in number, as few as 25. Most of them are bisexual, although there are some female florets as well. Flowering probably happens from late winter through spring and summer.

The species distribution is inland in the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal Drakensberg, also in Lesotho.

The habitat is montane, rocky grassland. The habitat population is deemed of least concern early in the twenty first century (iNaturalist; JSTOR; https://keys.lucidcentral.org; http://redlist.sanbi.org).