Cotula sericea

Cotula sericea, sometimes called buttons like some other cotulas and previously Cenia sericea, is a tufted and spreading perennial reaching heights from 20 cm to 40 cm. Many soft branches grow from the woody base.

The species distribution is restricted to the Koue Bokkeveld in the Western Cape where the plants grow in high altitude, montane shale. There is some confusion with C. discolor, a similar plant with less dense leaf lobes, growing along the coast from Mossel Bay to East London. The photo was taken in the Stellenbosch University Botanical Garden, the plant presented as C. sericea.

 C. sericea is rare, its population stable early in the twenty first century (Bond and Goldblatt, 1984; JSTOR; iNaturalist; http://pza.sanbi.org; http://redlist.sanbi.org).