- ≡ Cotula potentillina (F.Muell.) Druce, Bot. Soc. Exch. Club Brit. Isles 4 Suppl.: 617 (1917)
- = Cotula muelleri Kirk, Stud. Fl. New Zealand 324 (1899)
A diffusely creeping perennial herb. Rhizomes on soil surface, rather thick, pale, sparsely pilose; branches usually single at flowering nodes; leaves in two rows, single at apex, 0.5-4.0 cm apart. Short shoots alternate on both sides of the rhizome, with clustered leaves, sts converted into rhizomes with distant leaves. Roots slender and weak, up to 0.5 mm diam. Leaves 1-pinnatifid, 2-12 × 0.4-2.5 cm; blade 1-8 cm, obovate, subfleshy, yellow-green, without brown pigment, glabrous or almost so, midrib slightly raised on proximal part of ventral surface: pinnae 6-15 pairs, not overlapping, cut to rhachis or distalmost sinuses not quite reaching rhachis in larger leaves, elliptic; teeth on most pinnae, up to 12 per pinna, almost equally on distal and proximal margins, cut ca. ¼ across pinna, triangular, obtuse or acute, occ. themselves with 1-2 teeth. Peduncles us. borne on rhizomes, us. longer than leaves, 2-7 cm, nude or with 1 simple bract, sparsely pilose. Monoecious. Heads 5-8 mm diam., surface hemispherical to steeply convex; involucre flat or spreading; phyllaries 15-30 in 2 or more subequal rows, elliptic to oblong, green, almost glabrous, with a narrow transparent scarious margin, not growing after anthesis; pistillate florets 60-200 in 4-6 rows, ca. 2.0 mm long, slightly curved, yellow-green; corolla slightly longer than wide, with unequal teeth; staminate florets more numerous. Achenes up to 1.5 × 0.8 mm, slightly compressed, almost round or irregularly angled, with a pale unwrinkled papery surface turning brown and smooth. Flowers in spring and summer.
[Reproduced from Lloyd (1972, New Zealand J. Bot. 10: 277–372, as Cotula potentillina (F.Muell.) Druce) with permission from The Royal Society of New Zealand.]