Leptinella pectinata subsp. pectinata

Detailed description

Monoecious, creeping, glabrate, perennial herb forming diffuse patches, or more rarely tight mats on open ground. Rhizomes at or near soil surface, stout, up to 2 mm diameter, somewhat wiry, dark, sparsely villous, glabrate to glabrescent; branches solitary, or in clusters of 4 radiating out from a flowering node, if solitary then arising if internodes are long; leaves initially clustered around shoot apex, often remaining crowded but sometimes spaced up to 20 mm apart. Short shoots absent. Roots extensive, wiry, much branched, up to 1 mm diameter. Leaves 1-pinnatifid, occasionally simple, 7-40 x 2-10 mm; blade up to 30 mm, elliptic, obovate, to broadly obovate, firmly coriaceous, dark green, finely and usually sparsely villous, glabrate, midrib not raised on ventral surface; pinnae 1-10 pairs, or absent, close-set or distant, cut to rhachis, linear to narrowly obovate, more or less cylindrical to flat, teeth usually absent, occasionally with 1-3 per pinna, these mostly on proximal margin, cut 1/2 across pinna, triangular, obtuse. Peduncles very much > leaves, 10-100 mm, ebracteate or rarely with 1 simply bract, glabrate. Capitula 4-8 mm diameter; involucre subcampanulate; involucral bracts 12-24, subequally 2- or more seriate, oblong, dark green to purple green, with 1-3 dark veins, with wide brown scarious margins; pistillate flowers 12-200, 2.25-2.75 mm long, straight, white, often with 1-2 dark stripes along corolla and ovary; corolla much > than wide, dentition equal; staminate florets more numerous than pistillate. Cypsela 2.1 x 0.7 mm, golden-brown, compressed, biconvex, slightly to deeply wrinkled.