''Felicia westae'' is a sparsely branched shrub growing up to tall, that is assigned to the family Asteraceae. The lower parts of the stems have lost their leaves and the upper part has many crowded, upwardly angled and curved, alternate leaves pressed against the stem, with the edges curled inward. The flower heads form at the tips of the branches, each about 3 cm (1 in) across, with about twenty purplish blue ray florets surrounding many yellow disc florets. It is only known from a small area in the

Eastern Cape The Eastern Cape is one of the provinces of South Africa. Its capital is Bhisho, but its two largest cities are East London and Gqeberha. The second largest province in the country (at 168,966 km2) after Northern Cape, it was formed in ...

province of South Africa.

Description

''Felicia westae'' is a low, up to high, sparsely branched shrub. The lower parts of the stem are largely hairless, the higher parts are crowded with arched upturned leaves. The leaves are line- to lance-shaped, long and 1–1 mm (0.04-0.06 in) wide, the surfaces hairless, and the bristly serrated margins curled upward and towards each other. 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 ...

are set individually on short, up to long stalks, which are set with thin white bristles. Surrounding each flower head are three to four whorls of

bract In botany, a bract is a modified or specialized leaf, especially one associated with a reproductive structure such as a flower, inflorescence axis or cone scale. Bracts are usually different from foliage leaves. They may be smaller, larger, or of ...

s (or phyllaries) that together form the so-called involucre, which is up to in diameter. These bracts are of different length, lance-shaped, about long and approximately 1 mm (0.06 in) wide, with a bristly margin and glands. Each head contains about twenty female ray florets, each with closed, tubular part at the base that is hairy in its upper part and a purplish blue strap of about long and wide. These surround numerous bisexual disc florets with a yellow

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, hairy in the middle. In the center of each

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. Surrounding the base of the corolla are many, yellowish white, shallowly serrated, more or less deciduous pappus bristles, all about equal in length at . The eventually yellowish brown to reddish, dry, one-seeded, indehiscent fruits called cypselae are oval in outline, about long and wide, with a weak ridge along the margin. The cypselae of the ray florets are hairless, those of the disc florets short-haired.

Taxonomy

This species of Felicia was first described by

Henry Georges Fourcade Henry Georges Fourcade, also known as Henri Georges Fourcade and sometimes Georges Henri Fourcade, was a surveyor, forester, pioneer of photogrammetry and as botanist, a major early collector of the Southern Cape flora. Early life Henry ...

in 1932, based on a specimen he collected in 1928. He named it ''Aster westae''. Jürke Grau in his 1973 ''

Revision Revision is the process of revising. More specifically, it may refer to: * Patch (computing), Update, a modification of software or a database * Revision control, the management of changes to sets of computer files * ''ReVisions'', a 2004 antholo ...

of the genus Felicia (Asteraceae)'', reassigned the species and made the combination ''Felicia westae''. The species is considered to be part of the section Anhebecarpaea.

Distribution, habitat and conservation

''Felicia westae'' was known from many observations near Humansdorp in the southwest of the Eastern Cape province of South Africa, where it occurred on river banks in low-lying areas near the coast. It grows in vegetation types called Tsitsikamma Sandstone

Fynbos Fynbos (; meaning fine plants) is a small belt of natural shrubland or heathland vegetation located in the Western Cape and Eastern Cape provinces of South Africa. This area is predominantly coastal and mountainous, with a Mediterranean clim ...

and Garden Route Shale Fynbos. It is considered to be endangered because its habitat suffered from expanding agriculture and timber plantations, while on the riverbanks it is out-competed by invasive plant species. After 1944 it was no longer found until it was rediscovered in 2015 along a few tributaries of the Tsitsikamma River.

References

External links

Line drawing of ''Felicia westae''

Distribution of ''Felicia westae''
{{Taxonbar, from=Q15598128 westae Endemic flora of the Cape Provinces Plants described in 1932