Leptinella squalida subsp. squalida

Detailed description

Dioecious, widely creeping, fast-growing perennial herb forming dense monospecific turfs or intermingled with other turf species. Rhizomes at or near soil surface, green, dark green to red-green, flexible, pilose hairy; branches usually single at flowering nodes; leaves in two rows, single at apex, 5-30 mm apart. Short shoots alternate on both sides of the rhizomes with distant leaves. Roots slender and weak, up to 0.8 mm diameter. Leaves 1-pinnatifid, 5-10(-20) x 3-20 mm; blade 4-6(-10) mm, bright green or yellow-green with basal 1/3-1/2 brown-pigmented and/or the proximal pinnae, broadly elliptic or obovate, fleshy to membranous, sparsely pilose hairy to moderately pilose hairy or glabrous, midrib raised along majority of ventral surface; pinnae 6-20 pairs, oblong to elliptic, large pinnae suborbicular to obovate, usually equal in length and width, close-set, overlapping; distal pinnae not cut to rhachis, closer together and set at a narrower angle to the rhachis than the middle pinnae, often overlapping; middle and proximal pinnae cut to rhachis, usually distant, but often overlapping; teeth usually present on pinnae with up to 10 per pinna, oblong to acute. Peduncles borne on rhizomes, sparsely pilose hairy, usually longer than leaves, 10-60 mm, ebracteate or with 1 simple bract. Pistillate capitula 3-5 mm elongating to 10 mm diameter in fruit; surface convex; involucre urceolate; involucral bracts 15-40, subequally 3- or more seriate, green, broadly elliptic, somewhat villous, with a broad brown-tipped scarious margin; inner bracts elongating after anthesis to enclose subglobose fruiting head; florets 15-70, 2.2.5 mm long, yellow-green, curved, corolla slightly longer than wide, dentition unequal. Staminate heads 4-7 mm diameter; involucre hemispherical; involucral bracts 5-10, uni- or biseriate, not extending after anthesis; florets more numerous. Cypsela 1.9 x 0.9 mm, initially pale, chartaceous and wrinkled, maturing brown and smooth.