Polyarrhena reflexa

Polyarrhena reflexa is a straggling, bristly shrub reaching 1 m in height. The alternate leaves are sessile, broad-based and recurving at their pointed tips. The leaf surfaces are shiny, the margins more barbed than toothed. Leaf dimensions are 10 mm long, 4 mm wide.

The solitary stem-tip flowerheads have one ring of spreading female ray florets, white above and red-purple below, around a yellow disc. The three rows of involucral bracts below are hairless, the inner row the longest. Flowerhead diameter is about 18 mm.

The species distribution is from the Cape Peninsula to Paarl and Caledon. The photo was taken in Fernkloof at Hermanus in July.

The habitat is moist places on lower fynbos slopes. P. reflexa subsp. reflexa is not considered to be threatened in its habitat early in the twenty first century, but P. reflexa subsp. brachyphylla occurring slightly more eastwards in an overlapping distribution is vulnerable (Manning, 2007; Bean and Johns, 2005; www.redlist.sanbi.org).