Botanical name: Helichrysum emodi    Family: Asteraceae (Sunflower family)

Himalayan Strawflower is newly discovered (2024) alpine plant with tight clusters of white cudweed flower-heads with yellowish center. It is the only species of Helichrysum known from Indian Himalayas. Flower-heads are disc-like, about 5 mm across, borne in umbels. Phyllaries are in 4-series, white, overlapping; outer whorls obovate, 4-4.2 x 1.2-1.5 mm, tip rounded; inner phyllaries elongate, oblong to elliptic-oblong, 3-3.5 x 1-2.5 mm, base golden yellow. Disc florets are yellow, bisexual, 3.5-3.8 mm long, funnel-shaped, 5-lobed, protruding from head when fully bloomed; flower tube 2.4-2.6 mm long, petals pointed at tip, reflexed at blooming; female florets absent. Stamens are 5; filaments inserted at below the middle of flower tube. It is a prostrate herb, rising up to 30 cm; stem slender, round, woolly, velvet-hairy when older. Leaves are green, alternate; blade oblong-elliptic to linear-oblong, 2.5-3 x 0.5-1.8 cm, base broad, somewhat heart-shaped to half stem-clasping, decurrent up to 7 mm on stem, margins entire, tip somewhat pointed to blunt with with a short sharp point tip, sparsely velvet-hairy above, whitish velvet-hairy below, glandular; glands golden in color, shiny, stalkless. Himalayan Strawflower is currently known only from Madhmaheshwar Valley in Uttarakhand.

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The flower labeled Himalayan Strawflower is ...