Leptinella goyenii

Detailed description

Woody, gyndioecious, perennial herb forming compact mats up to 30 mm thick in patches up 1 m wide. Rhizomes densely packed together, crowded, more or less horizontal and ascending at tips, completely obscured by leaves; branches single or in 2-3-clustered and diverging aggregates, usually spaced at 5-30 mm intervals; living leaves densely imbricate on the upper 5 mm of stem; lower parts covered with dead persistent leaves. Short shoots absent. Roots arising from basal parts of stems, slender but firm, more or less woody up to 5 mm diameter. Leaves sessile, palmately divided, curved around stem, 4-6 x 4-5 mm; blade 3 mm long, dark green, falcate, firmly coriaceous, with scattered short eglandular hairs; margins lobed up to 7 times, these linear, subteret, acute to acuminate, cut to top of broad leaf base. Peduncles more or less equal to or > leaf length, up to 70 mm long, ebracteate or with 1 small bract, pilose hairy. Capitula not or just emergent from mat surface, 2-4 mm diameter; surface convex; involucre hemispherical; involucral bracts subequally biseriate, elliptic or oblong, membranous, dark-green with a wide, pale keeled midrib, glabrous with broad scarious margins. Pistillate capitula with 10-15 involucral bracts and 20-45 florets; florets 2.25 mm long, straight, yellow-red, corolla twice as long as wide, dentition equal. Staminate capitula with 8-12 involucral bracts, 0-8 pistillate florets and 10-35 staminate. Cypsela 1.3 x 0.65 mm, golden-brown, glossy, compressed, smooth or slightly wrinkled.