Leptinella dioica Hook.f.

A creeping, fleshy perennial herb. Rhizomes at or near soil surface, green or dark, flexible and ± pilose, becoming pale, wiry and glabrous if buried; branches uncommon, us. single at flowering nodes; leaves in two rows, single at the apex, 0.3-3.0 cm apart. Short shoots alternate on both sides of the rhizome, with up to 5 clustered leaves, rarely converted into rhizomes with distant leaves. Roots us. slender and weak, up to 0.8 mm diam. Leaves very variable in size, shape, and divisions, simple to incised-pinnatifid, occ. pinnatifid, 0.7-12.0 × 0.3-1.5 cm; blade 0.5-7.0 cm, narrowly to broadly obovate or elliptic, fleshy, green, or glaucous, us. without dark pigment, ± glabrous but dotted with sunken glandular hairs, midrib not raised on vertical surface, lobes (pinnae or teeth) 4-12 pairs, distant or the distal ones overlapping, oblong to orbicular; proximal lobes cut to rhachis, sinuses of distal lobes usually not reaching rhachis, sts cut only 1/5 to rhachis at widest part of the leaf; teeth often absent but up to 6 per lobe, on the distal and outer margins, small, triangular, obtuse or rounded, apiculate. Peduncles us. borne on rhizomes, ca. equal to leaves, 1-6 cm, nude or with 1 simple bract, sparsely villous. Us, dioecious, occ. monoecious. Pistillate heads 2-7 mm diam.. up to 10 mm in fruit; surface convex; involucre urceolate; phyllaries 10-30 in 3 or more unequal rows, broadly elliptic, green, glabrous, with a wide, often brown-tipped, scarious margin; inner phyllaries grow after anthesis to enclose subglobose fruiting head; florets 10-80, ca. 2-5 mm long, curved, yellow-green; corolla slightly longer than wide, with unequal teeth. Staminate heads 3-8 mm diam.; involucre hemispherical; phyllaries 5-10 in 1-2 subequal rows, not growing after anthesis; florets slightly more numerous. Bisexual heads predominantly staminate. Achenes up to 1.9 × 1.0 mm, slightly compressed, almost round or irregularly angled, with a pale unwrinkled papery surface turning brown and smooth. Flowers in spring and summer.

[Reproduced from Lloyd (1972, New Zealand J. Bot. 10: 277–372, as Cotula dioica (Hook.f.) Hook.f.) with permission from The Royal Society of New Zealand.]