Sprawling subshrub arising from a multicipital stock and forming mats up to 2 m diameter. Branchlets stout, c. 5 mm diameter, clad in leaf remains and emitting cord-like roots along most of length. Living leaves in rosulate tufts at branchlet tips. Lamina 2-6 × 1-2 cm, oblanceolate, light green sometimes glaucous, tip subacute, base tapering gradually into sheath, margin finely dentate; lower and upper surfaces glabrous except for a narrow and sometimes inconspicuous band of deciduous white hairs along the margin; midrib and one to two pairs of lateral veins prominent. Sheath membranous and glabrous, broad. Scape glandular, sometimes with a few deciduous eglandular hairs in lower part, stout, 12—20 × 0.2-0.3 cm; bracts many, foliaceous, glandular, oblanceolate to oblong, midrib and one pair of lateral veins prominent. Receptacle subglobose, c. 1.5 cm diameter. Phyllaries in several series, loosely imbricate, up to 1.5 cm long, subulate, acuminate, slightly recurved, densely clothed in stalked glandular hairs, margins fimbriate towards tip. Ray florets up to 2.5 cm long, limb wide, tube with stalked glandular hairs. In disc florets, corolla tube clad in biseriate eglandular hairs of clavate form. Pappus bristles unequal, up to 7 mm long, 20-30 in number, teeth close and short. Achene 2.5-3.5 × 1.0 mm, compressed, densely clad in long bifid hairs.
[Reproduced from Given (1971, New Zealand J. Bot. 9: 526-532) with permission from The Royal Society of New Zealand.]