Maireana trichoptera

Ascending to erect shrub, to c. 50 cm high; branchlets woolly-tomentose. Leaves alternate, semi-terete or narrowly clavate, 5–12 mm long, often slightly upcurved, fleshy, pubescent with fine, semi-appressed hairs. Flowers bisexual, often forming leafy spikes at branch-tips, woolly all over. Fruiting perianth c. 10–12 mm diam., pubescent over most of the upper surface and usually around base, flat at apex; tube obconical, c. 2–3.5 mm wide at apex, thin-walled in upper half, constricted about midway, expanded and firmly spongy below, the point of attachment (sometimes obliquely) sunken within base; wing circular, flat, often satiny pink when fresh; radicular slit obvious on wing but hardly extending down tube. Fruits Sep.–Dec.