Authors:
A densely, intricately branched, woody based cushion shrublet, prostrate and virtually stemless, 5-8cm tall in bloom. Shoots very short, tomentose and tightly leafy, with very short internodes. Leaves leathery, linear-lanceolate, fairly obtuse, 5-10 by 1mm, entire and strongly rolled back along the margins, their broad bases imbricate, the blades spreading, glabrous on the face and woolly beneath. Flowers solitary, terminal, sessile or almost so with a bell-shaped involucre 6-8mm high and 6-7mm across composed of woolly bracts. Just before expanding, the top of the bud is also heavily white-woolly, giving the impression of a plug of cotton-wool. The rich, orange-yellow flowerhead has a central disc and a ring of two-lipped, female ray florets, the outer lip prolonged into a strap of about 8m by 1.5mm with three tiny
teeth at the apex. Argentina, a frequent element of the dry Patagonian steppe at 100-800m. [Pl.63]
