Annual or short-lived perennial herb, erect or procumbent, 5–20 cm high, sometimes described as strongly aromatic; stems sparsely to densely branched, terete, occasionally flushed with purple, sparsely arachnoid pubescent.. Leaves alternate, bright to dark green, pinnatifid, rarely bipinnatifid, with lobed segments, in outline elliptic or obovate and 0.5–4 cm long, 0.3–1.5 cm wide, the very base half-amplexicaul, continuing in pseudopetiole which then expands into up to 6 lobed segments on each side of the rachis, the ultimate segments lanceolate and apiculate, up to 4(–8) mm long, 1 mm wide, sparsely arachnoid pubescent.. Capitula terminal, solitary, 3–5 mm long, 6-12 mm diameter; capitulum stalk relatively short in bud but rapidly lengthening, (1–)2–8.5 cm long, sparsely pubescent, near the receptacle usually with a dense tuft of hairs; involucre with 24–30 phyllaries, these 3–4-seriate, subequal, ovate, obovate or elliptic, 2–4 mm long, 1–3 mm wide, green with brown scarious margins, obtuse, glabrous or sparsely hairy; receptacle convex, with many stalks.. Outer florets 1-seriate, ± 12, on stalks ± 2 mm long, without a corolla, the dorsiventrally flattened ovary 1–1.5 mm long, 1–1.2 mm wide, 2-winged, subcordate at the apex and topped by a ± 0.5 mm long bifid style; the inner florets many, hermaphrodite and sterile intermixed, whitish, cream or occasionally described as yellow-green, on stalks ± 0.5 mm long, the corolla with a tube 1–1.2 mm long and 4 lobes ± 0.3 mm long, style ± 1 mm long.. Achenes dimorphic, those from the outer florets 1–1.5 mm long, 1–1.2 mm wide including 0.2–0.3 mm wide wings, ± 0.3 mm thick, sometimes purple near the subcordate apex, without pappus; those from the inner florets 1–1.5 mm long, 0.5–0.7 mm wide, hardly winged, 0.2 mm thick, without a pappus but often seen with the dry membranous corolla.. Fig. 110 (page 524).
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