Printzia polifolia flowerheads

The flowerheads of Printzia polifolia grow solitary and short-peduncled at branch tips with leaves present up to the bell-shaped involucres. An involucre consists of several rows of woolly bracts.

A head comprises one sparse ring of blue-purple or pink-purple ray florets, occasionally white ones around the many-flowered yellow disc. The rays are nearly oblong, tapering a little at both ends, the tips three-toothed. The disc florets are tubular, each ending in five lobes. The ray florets are female, their styles two-branched. The disc florets are bisexual, their anthers tailed.

Flowering happens late in winter and through spring.

The fruits are brown and ribbed with persistent, bristly pappuses (Curtis-Scott, et al, 2020; Vlok and Schutte-Vlok, 2015; Leistner, (Ed.), 2000; Bond and Goldblatt, 1984; iNaturalist).