- ≡ Cotula lanata (Hook.f.) Hook.f., Handb. New Zealand Fl. 141 (1864)
A robust but small-leaved, diffusely creeping perennial herb. Rhizomes on soil or rock surface, stout, 1-4 mm diam., covered with a thick mat of tangled woolly hairs but eventually becoming ± glabrous, brown and slightly woody; branches us. clustered, up to 4 radiating from around a flowering node, often repeated every few nodes several times per season; leaves 2-4 clustered at the apex, most 2-5 cm distant. Short shoots us. absent, occ. present as a few reduced leaves. Roots largely confined to older stems, us. slender, up to 1 mm diam. Leaves 1-pinnatifid, 1.0-2.5 × 0.4-1.0 cm; blade 0.5-2.0 cm long, broadly elliptic, thick, subfleshy, light green, with a few woolly hairs when young, especially on rhachis, later glabrous; midrib not raised on ventral surface; pinnae 3-5 pairs, distal ones overlapping, cut to rhachis, broadly elliptic or oblong if undivided; teeth up to 4 per pinna, on larger pinnae, mostly on distal margin, cut ca. ½ across pinna, triangular, obtuse. Peduncles borne on rhizomes, longer than leaves, 1-3 cm, nude, slender but with a thick mat of woolly hairs. Monoecious. Heads 0.6-1.0 cm diam., surface hemispherical; involucre hemispherical; phyllaries ca. 30 in 2-3 subequal rows, broadly elliptic, thick and subfleshy, green with deciduous woolly hairs and a narrow us. transparent scarious margin, not growing after anthesis; pistillate florets 50-100 in 2 or more rows, ca. 3.0 mm long, almost straight, yellow-green, corolla twice as long as wide, with equal teeth, staminate florets fewer, 70-90. Achenes up to 2.3 × 0.8 mm, not compressed, obscurely 4-angled, golden-brown, shiny, unwrinkled. Probably flowers from spring to autumn.
[Reproduced from Lloyd (1972, New Zealand J. Bot. 10: 277–372, as Cotula lanata (Hook.f.) Hook.f.) with permission from The Royal Society of New Zealand.]