Felicia wrightii

Felicia wrightii is a mat-forming perennial reaching heights around 20 cm. The leaves grow in a basal rosette, repeated at the tips of prostrate runners to form the mat developed by stronger plants.

The leaves are obovate or elliptic with entire, cartilaginous margins endowed with bristles around the thick, usually hairless green blades. The erect, hairy peduncles have few, smaller cauline (stem) leaves. The peduncle in picture is dark purple.

Solitary flowerheads comprise strap-shaped blue, mauve or occasionally white rays that spread in several whorls around a many-flowered yellow disc. Three whorls of bracts form the involucre. Flowerhead diameter is about 25 mm. Flowering happens in spring until after midspring.

The species is range restricted in the Drakensberg near Estcourt in the Kamberg Nature Reserve close to the Lesotho border.

The habitat is moist, grassy streambanks. The plant is critically rare, but the stable habitat population is deemed of least concern early in the twenty first century (Pooley, 1998; iNaturalist; Wikipedia; http://redlist.sanbi.org).