Robust rhizomatous perennials (in ours). Leaves in a basal rosette, linear, spongy, usually hairy, but becoming hairless with age. Capitulum spherical or flattened. Involucral bracts in several overlapping series, coriaceous with a scarious margin. Floral bracts filiform with expanded hary tips; both floral bracts and flowers embedded in a woolly cushion of long receptacular hairs. Flowers 3-merous. Petals usually eglandular. Male flowers: sepals membranous, free or basally connate; petals connate into a fleshy tube; 3 epipetalous glands within; stamens 6, twice as many as the petals; anthers yellowish. Female flowers: sepals free; petals connate into a tube, only the bases free, the tube with 3 linear glands within and densely white-pilose at the tip. Seeds subspherical, densely covered in white hair-like projections. Worldwide: 15 species in tropical Africa and two Madagascan endemics Malawi: 1 taxon. |
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