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- ≡ Cotula filiformis Hook.f., Handb. New Zealand Fl. 142 (1864)
A creeping perennial herb forming open patches. Rhizomes on the soil surface, slender, less than 1 mm diam., brown, sparsely pilose; branches us. single at flowering nodes but sts 2-3 clustered; leaves 3-many clustered at the apex, older leaves up to 1.5 cm apart. Short shoots absent or with 1-few small leaves. Roots slender, less than 0.5 mm diam. Leaves 1-pinnatifid, 0.3-2.0 × 0.2-0.4 cm; blade 0.2-1.5 cm, oblong to obovate, coriaceous, dull green, sts with brown pigment, ± glabrous; pinnae 4-10 pairs, not overlapping, cut to rhachis, obovate; teeth us. absent, occ. 1-3, on distal margins of proximal pinnae, cut ½-2/3 across pinna, triangular, obtuse and minutely mucronate. Peduncles borne on rhizomes, longer than leaves, slender, 1-3 cm, nude or with 1 simple bract, pilose. Monoecious. Heads 2-3 mm diam.; surface convex; involucre outspread; phyllaries 8-14 in 2 equal rows, suborbicular, pilose, with a wide brown scarious margin, not growing after anthesis; pistillate florets 15-50 in 2 or more rows, ca. 1.0 mm long, straight, white; corolla twice as long as wide, with equal teeth; staminate florets ca. equal in number. Achenes 0.85 × 0.5 mm. slightly compressed but almost round in section, pale brown, transversely wrinkled.
[Reproduced from Lloyd (1972, New Zealand J. Bot. 10: 277–372, as Cotula filiformis Hook.f.) with permission from The Royal Society of New Zealand.]