Leptinella pectinata (Hook.f.) D.G.Lloyd & C.J.Webb

A highly variable creeping perennial herb forming loose patches on open ground or dense mats in closed herbfields. Rhizomes at or near soil surface, rather stout, up to 2 mm diam., dark, densely villous at least when young; branches in clusters of up to 4 radiating from around a flowering node or solitary at flowering nodes if internodes are long; leaves initially clustered at apex, sts remaining crowded, us. older ones becoming up to 2.0 cm apart. No short shoots. Roots often extensive and much-branched, stout, up to 1 mm diam. Leaves 1- pinnatifid, occ. simple, 0.7-4.0 × 0.2-1.0 cm; blade 0.5-3.0 cm, elliptic or obovate, coriaceous, silky green and densely villous to dark green and glabrous, midrib not raised on ventral surface; pinnae 1-10 pairs, occ. absent, close-set in exposed habitats but us. distant, cut to rhachis, oblong, obovate or linear, obtuse, teeth often 0 sts 1-3 pinna, mostly on proximal margin, cut ca. \ across pinna, triangular, obtuse. Peduncles longer than leaves, 1-10 cm, nude or with 1 simple bract, sparsely to densely villous. Monoecious. Heads 4-8 mm diam.; involucre subcampanulate; phyllaries 12-24 in 2 or more subequal rows, oblong, dark green or grey-green, with 1-3 dark veins sts obscured by sparse to dense hairs, with wide brown scarious margin, not growing after anthesis; pistillate florets 12-200 in 1-several rows, 2.25-2.75 mm long, straight, white or pale yellow-red, often with 1-2 dark stripes along corolla and ovary; corolla 1½—3 times as long as wide, with equal teeth; staminate florets more numerous. Achenes up to 2.1 × 0.7 mm, ± compressed, biconvex, golden-brown, scarcely or deeply wrinkled Flowers in summer.

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