''Felicia dregei'' is an evergreen, glandular shrub of up to 1 m (5 ft) high, that is assigned to the family Asteraceae. It has flat, finely felty, grayish green, narrowly elliptic to lance-shaped leaves of up to long and wide, with an entire margin or here and there with up to ten teeth. The flower heads have about ten violet ray florets, encircling many yellow disc florets. This species grows in the

Northern Cape The Northern Cape is the largest and most sparsely populated province of South Africa. It was created in 1994 when the Cape Province was split up. Its capital is Kimberley. It includes the Kalahari Gemsbok National Park, part of the Kgalagadi T ...

and Western Cape provinces of South Africa.

Description

''Felicia dregei'' is an evergreen, upright, up to 1 m (5 ft) high shrub, and is very woody near its base, where it is covered with a brown, peeling

bark Bark may refer to: * Bark (botany), an outer layer of a woody plant such as a tree or stick * Bark (sound), a vocalization of some animals (which is commonly the dog) Places * Bark, Germany * Bark, Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship, Poland Arts, ...

. The older branches have elongated, indistinct short shoots, and end in long shoots. The leaves are alternately set, narrowly elliptic to lance-shaped, up to long and wide, and get much smaller higher up. Most leaves have an entire margin, but there are also leaves with up to ten short teeth. The leaf surface is gray-green and velvety, due to short glandular and bristly hairs on both leaf surfaces. Rarely, the leaves do not have glands but only short bristles. The

flower heads A pseudanthium (Greek for "false flower"; ) is an inflorescence that resembles a flower. The word is sometimes used for other structures that are neither a true flower nor a true inflorescence. Examples of pseudanthia include flower heads, compos ...

sit individually on top of a short

stalk Stalk or stalking may refer to: Behaviour * Stalk, the stealthy approach (phase) of a predator towards its prey * Stalking, an act of intrusive behaviour or unwanted attention towards a person * Deer stalking, the pursuit of deer for sport Biol ...

at the top of the long shoots. The peduncles are up to long, with few bracts, especially at the top mostly with glandular hairs. The involucre is up to 1 cm (0.7 in) in diameter and consists of three to four rows of bracts. These bracts are overlapping, densely glandular, and have a papery margin in particular above the middle. Around ten female ray florets have violet

ligules A ligule (from "strap", variant of ''lingula'', from ''lingua'' "tongue") is a thin outgrowth at the junction of leaf and leafstalk of many grasses (Poaceae) and sedges. A ligule is also a strap-shaped extension of the corolla, such as that of a ...

of about long and wide. They encircle numerous

bisexual Bisexuality is a romantic or sexual attraction or behavior toward both males and females, or to more than one gender. It may also be defined to include romantic or sexual attraction to people regardless of their sex or gender identity, whi ...

yellow disc florets, with a yellow, often tinged reddish brown,

corolla Corolla may refer to: *Corolla (botany), the petals of a flower, considered as a unit *Toyota Corolla, an automobile model name * Corolla (headgear), an ancient headdress in the form of a circlet or crown * ''Corolla'' (gastropod), a genus of moll ...

of about long. In the center of each corolla are five

anthers The stamen (plural ''stamina'' or ''stamens'') is the pollen-producing reproductive organ of a flower. Collectively the stamens form the androecium., p. 10 Morphology and terminology A stamen typically consists of a stalk called the filam ...

merged into a tube, through which the style grows when the floret opens, hoovering up the

pollen Pollen is a powdery substance produced by seed plants. It consists of pollen grains (highly reduced microgametophytes), which produce male gametes (sperm cells). Pollen grains have a hard coat made of sporopollenin that protects the gametophyt ...

on its shaft. At the tip of both style branches is a narrowly triangular appendage. Around the base of the corolla are numerous, yellowish white, short-toothed, persistent pappus bristles, which are all of the same length, up to about . The dry, one-seeded, indehiscent fruits called cypselae are dark brown with a yellowish brown ridge along the outline, elliptic, about 3 mm long and 1 mm wide, thinly silky haired but densely hairy on the edge, and the hairs seldom wear off.

Taxonomy

As far as known, ''Felicia dregei'' was first collected for science by Johann Franz Drège in 1830, and described by Augustin Pyramus de Candolle in 1836. William Henry Harvey reassigned the species and made the combination ''Aster dregei'' in 1865.

Karl August Otto Hoffmann Karl August Otto Hoffmann (25 October 1853 in Beeskow – 11 September 1909) was a German botanist and a high school teacher in Berlin. Author of ''Sertum plantarum madagascariensium'', the genus '' Hoffmanniella'' in the family Asteraceae was ...

distinguished a variation with somewhat deeper incised leaves as ''Felicia dregei'' var. ''incisa'' in 1905. In 1973 Jürke Grau considered these names

synonymous A synonym is a word, morpheme, or phrase that means exactly or nearly the same as another word, morpheme, or phrase in a given language. For example, in the English language, the words ''begin'', ''start'', ''commence'', and ''initiate'' are all ...

. ''F. dregei'' is considered part of the section ''Lignofelicia''.

Distribution and habitat

''Felicia dregei'' can be found in Little Namaqualand in the north to

Saldanha Saldanha may refer to: Places South Africa * Saldanha Bay, a bay in Western Cape * Saldanha, Western Cape, a town on the bay * Saldanha Bay Local Municipality, the unit of government that administers the Saldanha Bay region Other countries * Sal ...

and the Mountains bordering the

Karoo The Karoo ( ; from the Afrikaans borrowing of the South Khoekhoe !Orakobab or Khoemana word ''ǃ’Aukarob'' "Hardveld") is a semi-desert natural region of South Africa. No exact definition of what constitutes the Karoo is available, so its ext ...

in the west, South Africa, where it grows on

dolorite Diabase (), also called dolerite () or microgabbro, is a mafic, holocrystalline, subvolcanic rock equivalent to volcanic basalt or plutonic gabbro. Diabase dikes and sills are typically shallow intrusive bodies and often exhibit fine-grained ...

koppie An inselberg or monadnock () is an isolated rock hill, knob, ridge, or small mountain that rises abruptly from a gently sloping or virtually level surrounding plain. In Southern Africa a similar formation of granite is known as a koppie, a ...

s and slopes.

Conservation

The continued survival of ''Felicia dregei'' is considered to be of least concern because its population is stable.

References

External links

line drawing of ''Felicia dregei''

distribution map of ''Felicia dregei''
{{Taxonbar, from=Q15602068 dregei Endemic flora of the Cape Provinces Plants described in 1836