Names and synonyms

Oedera nordenstamii (Bremer) Anderberg & Bremer
= Relhania nordenstamii Bremer

Type

Nordenstam 1758, Richtersveld, mtn. between Numees and Hellskloof, on the summit only, 1962 (S holotype).

Derivation of names

Oedera = after George Christian Oeder (1728-1791), professor of Botany in Copenhagen, author of Flora Danica
nordenstamii = after Rune Bertil Nordenstam (1936- ), a Swedish botanist at the Swedish Museum of Natural History. He collected extensively in South Africa and included the type specimen of this species.

Diagnostic characters

Plants with numerous dry twigs
Leaves about as long as capitula, with pitted glands
Capitula mostly solitary or only a few together, terminal
Involucral bract flimsy

Description

A moderately branched, up to c. 0.3 m high shrublet. Stems ascending-erect, somewhat divaricate, leafy. Leaves decussate or sometimes alternate on stems, crowded on brachyblasts, spreading, flat or somewhat canaliculate, mid-ribbed, linear or narrowly elliptic-oblong, 4-12 x 0.5-1.5 mm, glabrous, distinctly glandular-punctate, acute-obtuse. Capitula cymose, 2-5 together, terminal on stem and short, pedunculoid, few-leaved branchlets. Involucre cup-shaped, 2-3.5 mm wide. Involucral bracts 25-35, subequal, outer ovate-oblong, up to 6.5 mm x 1 mm, dorsally gland-dotted, acute. Receptacle flat-convex, paleate. Paleae canaliculate, linear, 5.5-6 mm x 0.5-0.7 mm, dorsally gland-dotted, acute. Ray florets 4-8, lamina elliptic, 4.5-5 x 1.1 mm, 4-veined. Disc florets c. 15, perfect. Cypselas almost terete or somewhat angular, narrowly oblong, 2.5-3 x 0.7 mm, � pilose on lateral ribs; densely pilose in ray florets.  Pappus crownlike of � connate scales, up to 0.9 mm long.

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Flowering time

September and November.

Distribution

Collected on the summit of a mountain in the Richtersveld.
Known from a few specimens only.

Habitat

Dry rocky mountain top.

Notes

This species is known from one collection only, by Dr B. Nordenstam, Stockholm and named in his honour. It is related to O. sedifolia, O. foveolata, O. multipunctata and O. resinifera, but it is very distinct with the leaves fasciculate on brachyblasts and the slender capitula on short branchlets arranged in a cyme.

References

ANDERBERG, A.A. & BREMER, K. 1991. Parsimony analysis and cladistic reclassification of the Relhania generic group (Asteraceae - Gnaphalieae). Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden 78: 1061-1072.
BREMER, K. 1976. The genus Relhania (Compositae). Opera Botanica 40.
GOLDBLATT, P. & MANNING, J.C. 2000. Cape Plants. A conspectus of the Cape flora of South Africa. Strelitzia 9. SANBI.
GLEN, H.F. & GERMISHUIZEN, G. 2010. Botanical Exploration of southern Africa. Ed. 2. Strelitzia 26. SANBI.
KESTING, D. & CLARKE, H. 2008. Botanical names, what they mean. Wild Flowers of the Cape Peninsula, 3rd revised edition. Friends of Silvermine.

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