Leptinella traillii subsp. traillii

Detailed description

Dioecious, creeping, perennial herb forming a open to loosely mmated turf. Rhizomes at or near soil surface, green, dark green to brown, pliant, villously hairy; branches uncommon, usually single at flowering nodes; leaves in two rows, single at apex, 5-20 mm apart. Short shoots alternate on both sides of rhizome, bearing up to 6 clustered leaves, rarely converted into rhizomes with distant leaves. Roots slender, weak, white up to 0.6 mm diameter. Leaves 1-pinnatifid, 10-50 x 4-10 mm; lamina 10-40 mm, obovate, coriaceous, thick, glandular punctate, dark green, with dark brown pigmentation of all or only the proximal pinnae, sparsely villous; midrib slightly riased on proximal part of ventral surface; pinnae 4-10 pairs, equidistant, not overlapping, cut to rhachis, broadly obovate to suborbicular, width almost equal to length; teeth closely spaced, up to 12 per pinna, confined to distal and outer margins, cut 1/6-1/2 across pinna, narrowly triangular, acuminate with a sharp pale, often deciduous point, more or less obscured by a tuft or parallel hairs. Peduncles usually on rhizomes, about equal to leaves in length, 10-40 mm, ebracteate or with one simple bract, pilose-hairy. Pistillate capitula 3-5 mm diameter, up to 10 mm in fruit; surface convex; involucre urecolate; involucral bracts 15-20, unequally triseriate, broadly elliptic, green, more or less villous, with a broad hyaline - brown-tipped scarious margin; inner involucral bracts elongating after anthesis to enclose the subglobose fruiting head; florets 20-70, 2-5 mm long, curved, yellow-green; corolla slightly longer than wide, unequally toothed. Staminate heads 4-6 mm diameter, involucre hemispherical; involucral bracts 5-10 in 1-2 subequal rows, not extending after anthesis; florest generally more numerous. Cypsela up to 1.9 x 1 mm, brown, somewhat compressed, at first chartaceous becoming smooth at maturity.