Helichrysum praecurrens

Helichrysum praecurrens, sometimes commonly called the Basotho everlasting, is a mat-forming dwarf perennial producing many creeping, leafy branches. It reaches only about 2 cm in height.

The overlapping leaves are densely arranged in small rosettes at stem-tips. The leaves are covered in silky hairs, appearing white on their margins. Leaf-shape is narrowly lanceolate, the tips acute.

The flowerheads grow solitary and stalkless at stem-tips, positioned just above the leaves. A flowerhead consists of seven whorls of involucral bracts around the central dull-yellow discs, convex or dome-shaped, comprising many tiny individual florets. The involucral bracts overlap, grading down in size to the outside. They are narrow, tapering to acute tips, papery and dry in texture. Bract colour is pink or white, darker pink towards the tips and in the outer rows, gradually ageing in sunlight to white. Flowering happens late spring and early summer. The fruit is a ribbed, ellipsoid achene, sometimes hairy and with bristly pappus.

The species distribution is in the eastern Free State, the southwest of KwaZulu-Natal and Lesotho. The photo was taken in the northeast of Lesotho near Mokhotlong during November.

The habitat is mountain slopes at high elevations in alpine climate. The habitat population is deemed of least concern early in the twenty first century (iNaturalist; iSpot; www.keys.lucidcentral.org).