Xeranthemum inapertum

Xeranthemum inapertum is a slender annual herb of the family Asteraceae, native to dry stony slopes, fallow fields and open scrub of southern Europe, North Africa and western Asia, from the Iberian Peninsula and Morocco eastward through the Mediterranean basin to Iran. The plant typically reaches 20–60 cm in height, with erect, leafy, often unbranched stems that are clothed in fine appressed grey or whitish hairs, giving the foliage a silvery appearance. The leaves are alternate, sessile, linear-lanceolate to narrowly oblong, 2–5 cm long, with entire margins and the same dense pubescence as the stem. The terminal flower heads are solitary or few, 1.5–3 cm across, with conspicuous papery, dry, persistent involucral bracts in several rows that are pinkish, purplish or whitish — these are the showy part of the inflorescence, giving rise to the common name 'annual everlasting' or 'immortelle'. The disc florets are tubular, purplish and unlike the related X. annuum the heads remain almost closed at maturity. Flowering occurs in early to mid-summer. The fruits are small, hairy achenes with a pappus of scales.