Helichrysum praecurrens

Helichrysum praecurrens is a mat-forming dwarf perennial with many creeping, leafy branches. It grows only to 2 cm in height with overlapping leaves, densely arranged in small rosettes at stem tips. The leaves are covered in silky hairs, appearing white on their margins. Leaf shape is narrowly lanceolate, with acute tips.

Flowerheads grow solitary at stem tips without stalks, positioned just above the leaves. A flowerhead consists of involucral bracts around the central dull-yellow discs, convex or dome-shaped, comprising many tiny individual florets. The involucral bracts are overlapping or imbricate, graded in size in seven rows, narrow and tapering to acute tips. They are papery and dry in texture. In colour they are pink or white in colour, especially pink towards the bract tips and more in the back (lower) rows, gradually ageing in sunlight to white. Flowering happens at the end of spring and early summer. The fruit is a ribbed, ellipsoid achene, hairy or not, with a bristly pappus.

The distribution of these plants is limited to high elevations, above 3000 m in Lesotho, i.e. a small and remote area with alpine climate. This photo was taken in November near Mokhotlong in the north-east of Lesotho (iSpot; www.keys.lucidcentral.org).