Cotula leptalea

This plant seen in Namaqualand during August is thought to be Cotula leptalea. C. leptalea is a tufted annual reaching about 10 cm in height. 

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, widely in Namaqualand to the west coast, the north of the Western Cape and in KwaZulu-Natal.

The plants grow on seasonally moist, sandy flats and dunes. The habitat population is deemed of least concern early in the twenty first century (Le Roux, et al, 2005; iNaturalist; http://redlist.sanbi.org).