Names and synonyms

Macowania hamata Hilliard & Burtt

Type

Hilliard, O.M. 7816, Underberg Distr., Garden Castle Nature Reserve, 1975-01-28 (P, NU, PRE, NBG, NH, S)

Derivation of names

Macowania = after Dr. Peter MacOwan (1830-1901), botanist, director of the Cape Town Botanic Gardens, and discoverer of new species at the Cape.
hamata = hooked

Diagnostic characters

Leaf tip hooked
Leaf glands stout with fine tips, sparse

Description

Straggly shrub up to c. 1 m tall and 1 m diam.. Stems densely leafy and white-woolly when young, stems white-woolly for at least one season. Leaves spreading, linear, c. 10-13 x 1.25 mm, apex very acute, hooked, margins revolute, upper surface green, glossy, initially white-woolly on both surface but upper surface looses hairs quickly and becomes glossy with sparse, stout gland-tipped hairs; lower surface remains white-woolly with an obscured midrib. Capitula sessile, solitary at the branch tips, partly obscured by uppermost leaves. Involucre funnel-shaped, c. 12 x 10 mm, bracts straw-coloured, brownish towards the tips, thinly woolly. Involucral bracts straw-coloured to brownish near tips, thinly woolly, tapering to a very narrow tip, which is slightly reflexed, innermost bracts acute with short mucro. Ray florets yellow, female. Disc florets hermaphrodite, corolla of disc flowers cylindric below, hairy, narrowly bell-shaped above, glabrous. Cypselas 10-ribbed, glabrous. Pappus bristles c. 22, subequal, longest about equalling cylindric part of corolla tube, caducous.

top

Flowering time

Recorded from December to February and May.

Distribution

Known from a small area around Sani Pass and in the Underberg area, 1800-2200 m. Known from about 7 specimens.

Habitat

On steep moist, rocky slopes, especially in valleys on cliffs above streams.

Notes

The close relationship of M. hamata with M. sorosis is supported by the anatomy of the leaves. The palisade layer of the mesophyll is continuous across the leaf in M. hamata with M. sorosis, while it is broken by fibres or parenchyma above the midrib in the other species.

References

ANDERBERG, A.A. 1991. Taxonomy and phylogeny of the tribe Gnaphalieae (Asteraceae). Opera Botanica 104: 50-53.
HILLIARD, O.M. & BURTT, B.L. 1976. Notes on some plants of southern Africa chiefly from Natal: V. Notes from the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh 34,3: 260-276.
HILLIARD, O.M. 1977. Compositae in Natal. University of Natal Press.
KESTING, D. & CLARKE, H. 2008. Botanical names, what they mean. Wild Flowers of the Cape Peninsula, 3rd revised edition. Friends of Silvermine.
POOLEY, E. 2003. Mountain Flowers. A Field guide to the Flora of the Drakensberg and Lesotho. The Flora Publications Trust.

top