Japanese name: マメカミツレ Scientific name:Cotula australis
[Overview]
An annual 5–20 cm tall, found along roadsides and on vacant lots.
Long soft hairs grow sparsely over the whole plant.
The stem branches; the lower part creeps along the ground and the upper part rises upright.
The leaves are alternate, deeply or fully divided twice pinnately into 9–13 lobes.
It flowers almost all year round.
Flower heads 0.5–0.8 cm across are borne facing upward at the tips of flower stalks 5–10 cm long.
The heads consist only of tubular florets; those at the edge are female, and those in the center are yellowish white and bisexual.
The involucre is disc-shaped.
The involucral bracts are in one row, oblong with rounded tips, and have white membranous margins.
The fruit is an achene of two types: the female florets at the edge produce large, flat, elliptical achenes with a stalk and wings, and the bisexual florets in the center produce small achenes without wings.
[History]
It was collected in Kobe in 1939 and has since been confirmed from central Honshu westward.
[Notes]
The Japanese name comes from its resemblance to kamitsure (chamomile).
