Cotula leptalea

This plant seen in Namaqualand during August is thought to be Cotula leptalea. It is a tufted annual reaching about 10 cm in height. The soft green leaves are hairy, deeply to roundly lobed, becoming 1 cm to 4 cm long.

Flowerheads are borne on faintly hairy but leafless green to reddish peduncles, well clear of the leaves below. Flowerheads have disc florets only, clustered densely in a shallow dome-shape. There are two rows of green bracts in the involucre. Flowerhead diameter is about 8 mm. Flowering happens from before midwinter to after midspring.

The species distribution is in the Northern Cape and the north of the Western Cape, widely in Namaqualand to the west coast.

The plants grow on seasonally moist, sandy flats and dunes. The species is not considered to be threatened in its habitat early in the twenty first century (Le Roux, et al, 2005; iNaturalist; http://redlist.sanbi.org).