- ≡ Cotula featherstonii (F.Muell.) Hook.f., Handb. New Zealand Fl. 733 (1867)
- = Cotula renwickii Cockayne, Trans. New Zealand Inst. 47: 119 (1915)
A robust, luxuriant suberect perennial herb. Stems erect or later becoming decumbent, 0.2-1.2 m tall, thick, up to 6 mm diam., green, hard, subwoody at base, incompletely ringed at intervals with old leafscars and sparsely covered with short deciduous hairs; branches clustered, us. 3-4 diverging from a flowering node and the nodes immediately behind, often repeated at later nodes several times per season; leaves several clustered at the apex, older ones scattered 0.2- 3.0 cm apart. Roots not seen. Leaves simple, almost sessile, 1.5-4.0 × 0.7-1.7 cm; blade obovate, narrowing into ill-defined petiole and leafbase, tender, grass-green, glabrous to thickly and evenly covered with soft, suberect, zh deciduous hairs, midrib and principal veins evident on both surfaces, with 0-3 shallow triangular obtuse teeth on either side just below the apex. Peduncles shorter than leaves, 1-2 cm, with 0 or a few small bracts, villous. Monoecious. Heads ca. 1 cm diam.; surface hemispherical; involucre hemispherical; phyllaries 10- 15 in 1-2 subequal rows, broadly elliptic, rather thick, green with 1-3 brown veins evident, sparsely pilose, with a narrow transparent scarious margin around the apex only, not growing after anthesis; pistillate florets ca. 200 in 6 or more rows, ca. 2.0 mm long, almost straight, yellow-green; corolla ca. 3 times as long as wide, blunt, with equal teeth; staminate florets fewer, ca. 130. Achenes up to 1.5 × 0.7 mm, slightly compressed, chocolate-brown, striated with 2 lateral, 2-4 anterior and 2-4 posterior pale ribs, unwrinkled. Probably flowers from spring to autumn.
[Reproduced from Lloyd (1972, New Zealand J. Bot. 10: 277–372, as Cotula featherstonii (F.Muell.) Hook.f.) with permission from The Royal Society of New Zealand.]