Description :

• Shrublets, usually densely leafy
• Leaves alternate, entire to slightly toothed, densely hairy to glabrous; hairs usually coarse, sometimes glandular
• Capitula radiate, solitary, terminal, sessile or pedunculate, or lateral or sometimes clustered on branchlets
• Involucral bracts in 3 rows, lanceolate, inner row the longest
• Receptacle epaleate
• Ray florets female, with upperside white and underside purplish pink, acute
• Stigma shortly bilobed
• Disc florets bisexual or more often male or mixed, yellow
• Anthers ecalcarate and ecaudate; apical appendage ovate-lanceolate, flat
• Style appendage triangular in fertile florets
• Cypselas buff or greenish brown to yellow, obtuse, elliptic, with swollen margin, glabrous, with horny ring ± 1 mm deep at upper end
• Pappus of slender, yellowish white, scabrid, caducous bristles in 1 row

Classification Notes:

• Formerly associated with Aster , Felicia , etc.

Nomenclature:

• Polyarrhena Cass.
  • Cassini: 173 (1828)
  • Grau: 347 (1970)
  • Bremer: 430 (1994)

Distribution & Notes:

• Southern Africa : Species 4, endemic, Western Cape