Australina pusilla subsp. pusilla

Detailed description

Dark green to grass green perennial herb producing numerous prostrate and ascending stems, up to 250 mm high and 0.8-1.5 mm diameter. Young stems, petioles and peduncles with an indumentum of stiff, appressed hairs or occasionally also with finer, more erect hairs. Leaves alternate, petiolate; stipules 0.5-1.0 mm long, linear to lanceolate, sometimes ciliate, up to 1 mm long; petiole up to 1.0-1.4(-11.0) mm long; lamina 11-16 x 12-16 mm, orbicular (sometimes broader than long), base cuneate or truncate, margin with 1-4 blunt or rounded teeth, apical tooth almost always broader than long, with 2-4 pairs of lateral nerves, usually glabrous on both sides, occasionally with lines of appressed hairs between the veins, and abaxially sometimes with scattered, appressed hairs on the veins. Male inflorescences 1-3-flowered, usually restricted to the axils of the upper leaves (rarely terminal), borne on pubescent or glabrescent peduncles up to 6 mm long. Flowers up to 1.0 x 1.5 mm, densely pubescent to subglabrous. Female inflorescences 1-9-flowered, sessile. axillary in the leaf axils below those of the male inflorescences. Flowers symmetrical, slightly flattened, with 4 ± marked ridges, subglabrous, apex with 2 marked teeth between which the filiform style protrudes. Fruit an achene, enclosed in a persistent perianth; purple-brown, dark purple-brown to almost black, glabrous, 0.8-1.2 mm long, broadly ovate, sometimes elliptic, obovate or almost circular, asymmetric, biconvex, apex rounded to a narrow pointed (sometimes curved) projection, base rounded to a short, tapering, rounded or flattened, often curved projection, surface dull or shiny, densely papillate or colliculate.