Helichrysum chionosphaerum

Helichrysum chionosphaerum is known as a dwarf everlasting, a name ascribed to several members of this genus called sewejaartjie in Afrikaans, suggesting that the picked flowers will last for seven years, as they are dry and papery. Another name, snowball everlasting, alludes to bract colour or involucre shape. The English common name, everlasting makes an even bigger claim in that respect on behalf of many of the strawflowers. Don't pick the veld flowers, just worship them and move on, as General Jan Smuts used to advise!

The low-growing plant forms mats, about 15 cm high and 1 m wide. The leaves form rosettes at the tips of many short branches. The long, narrow leaves are grey white above with three parallel veins showing, and silky or felted below, later only along the entire margins. Leaf dimensions are 1 cm to 10 cm long and 1 mm to 3 mm wide.

The flowerheads grow solitary or in small groups at erect stem-tips well above the leaves. Alternating stem-leaves adhere to the stems. The several rows of involucral bracts around a disc of tiny yellow florets are white or creamy. The flower disc is often protruding above the involucre in older flowerheads. A flowerhead is up to 12 mm tall and 25 mm wide.

The species distribution is in the east of South Africa, the plants found in all provinces except the Western Cape and the Northern Cape, also in some neighbouring countries.

The habitat is open grassland in rocky places up to elevations around 2250 m, also on rock sheets and ridges. The habitat population is deemed of least concern early in the twenty first century.

This plant is grown from seed by horticulturists widespread in the world, not only for the flowers, but also for the silvery, velvety foliage (Pooley, 1998; Van Wyk and Malan, 1997; iNaturalist; http://redlist.sanbi.org).