- ≡ Cotula intermedia D.G.Lloyd, New Zealand J. Bot. 10: 336-338 (1972)
A small creeping perennial herb with tufts of leaves in turf. Rhizomes shallowly buried, initially dark, flexible, and sparsely pilose, becoming pale stiff and glabrous; branches uncommon, us. single at flowering nodes; leaves spirally arranged, 1-2 at the apex, 0.5-1.0 cm apart. Short shoots grow ± upwards from the rhizome, with up to 5 tufted leaves at the apex. Roots slender and weak, up to 0.6 mm diam. Leaves 1-pinnatifid, 0.8-4.0 × 0.2-1.2 cm; blade 0.4-3.0 cm long, elliptic, coriaceous, light green, sts with brown pigment especially on proximal pinnae, glabrous; midrib sts slightly raised on ventral surface; pinna 4-10 pairs, not overlapping, cut to rhachis, elliptic; teeth us. few per pinna, up to 5 on distal margin and 3 on proximal margin, cut up to ½ across pinna, triangular, obtuse. Peduncles us. borne on rhizomes, ca. equal to leaves, ca. 3 cm, ± villous, nude or with 1 simple bract. Monoecious. Heads 4-5 mm diam.; surface convex; involucre hemispherical, phyllaries ca. 12 in 1-2 subequal rows, broadly elliptic, dark green, ± villous, with wide brown scarious margin, not growing after anthesis; pistillate florets few, up to 10 in 1 incom- plete row, ca. 2.0 mm long, almost straight, yellow-green; corolla slightly longer than wide, with almost equal teeth; staminate florets much more numerous, ca. 40. Achenes up to 1.3 × 0.9 mm, compressed, biconvex, golden brown, unwrinkled. Probably flowers principally in summer.
[Reproduced from Lloyd (1972, New Zealand J. Bot. 10: 277–372, as Cotula intermedia Lloyd) with permission from The Royal Society of New Zealand.]