Felicia filifolia is a Southern African member of the family Asteraceae. It is a hardy, sprawling shrub growing to about 1 metre tall. Leaves are narrow (filifolia = threadlike leaves) and clustered along the twigs. When blooming it is densely covered in flowerheads with ray florets that are pink-mauve to white and disc florets that are yellow. In the wild, flowers can be found August to December.
The species is widespread over mountainous areas, commonly found growing amongst rocks. It is suspected of causing haemorrhaging when ingested by sheep.
Naming
Felicia filifolia is called "fine-leaved felicia", "needle-leaved felicia", or "wild aster" in English, draaibos in Afrikaans and sehalahala-seseholo in the Sesotho language.
Description
Felicia filifolia subsp. filifolia is a mostly strongly branched and woody, largely hairless, medium-sized shrub of high. It has a dark blackish brown, often slightly fibrous bark. The leaves are alternately set, clustered on short shoots or uniformly arranged on long shoots, hairless or woolly only on the upper side of the leafbase. The leaves are more or less succulent, narrowly needle-shaped, long and approximately ½ mm (0.02 in) in diameter, usually with distinctly callous tip, more or less wrinkled, and with resin vessels on the inside.
The flower heads are on the short shoots or at the tip of the long shoots, medium-sized, seated or on up to long stalks. The involucre is in diameter, and consists of three to four whorls of bracts. These bracts are overlapping, lance-shaped, hairless, tawny to greenish in colour with the tip often tinged red. They have a papery margin more or less set with a regular row of hairs. The outer bracts are 1½ mm (0.06 in) long and ½ mm (0.02 in) wide, those in the middle 3 mm (0.12 in) long and 1 mm (0.04 in) wide, and the inner 5 mm long and ½ mm wide. Each head has ten to fifteen female, medium or light purple, rarely white, ray florets of about 1 cm long and 1½ mm wide. These surround numerous bisexual yellow, later burgundy-washed disc florets of long. The two style branches each have a long triangular appendage. The pappus bristles are numerous, yellowish white in colour, and do not detach. Although they vary in length, they do not occur in two distinct rows. The longer pappus bristles have teeth along their length and are 5–7 mm (0.2–0.28 in) long, the shorter scaly and ½–1 mm (0.02–0.04 in) long. The dry, one-seeded, indehiscent fruits called cypselae are obovate to elliptic, about 4 mm (0.16 in) long and 1½ mm (0.06 in) wide, evenly silky hairy, with a brownish scaly surface when mature, and a light ochre-coloured marginal ridge.
Felicia filifolia subsp. bodkinii remains lower than the typical subspecies at about . The thick, succulent leaves, do not have a narrowed base, are nearly fully round in cross-section, about 2 cm long and 1 mm across, and sit alternately at regularly distances along the long shoots. Short shoots are failing or few. The relatively large floral heads have an involucre of about 10 mm in cross section, and sit at the top of the long shoots. The outer bracts are 1½ mm (0.06 in) long and ½ mm (0.02 in) wide, and the inner 5 mm long and 1.2 mm wide. Near Graaff Reinet, the subspecies occurs without ray florets.
Felicia filifolia subsp. schaeferi is a low plant at a maximum of . The succulent leaves are crowded along the stem and up to 15 mm long, often spread forward and narrowed at the base. The heads are up to 10 cm long stems.
In Felicia filifolia subsp. schlechteri the floral heads are almost exclusively on 2–10 cm long stalks. The succulent leaves are round in cross section, and longer than in the typical subspecies at 1.8–4 cm, on average 2½ cm, and are typically oriented upwards, pressed against the stem.
Felicia filifolia is a diploid having nine sets of homologous chromosomes (2n=18).
Differences between the subspecies
Although intermediates between subsp. filifolia and each of the other three subspecies, and between subsp. schaeferi and subsp. bodkinii are known, the subspecies are distinct even when growing at the same location. Subsp. bodkinii has broad synflorescences, and succulent leaves of up to 2 cm long that are set evenly along the stems, including the peduncle. Subsp. filifolia has long synflorescences, and slender, sometimes somewhat flattened leaves of up to 3 cm long. Subsp. schaeferi has broad synflorescences, and succulent leaves of up to 2 cm long, set in groups, with the lower part of the peduncle crowded with leaves and the upper part almost leafless. Subsp. schlechteri has broad synflorescences, and succulent leaves of up to 4 cm long.