A soft creeping perennial herb forming loose patches or part of a turf. Rhizomes at or near soil surface, green or dark, flexible, sparsely villous; branches usually single at flowering nodes; leaves in two rows, single at the apex, 0.5-2.0 cm apart. Short shoots alternate on both sides of the rhizome, with up to 6 clustered leaves, occ. converted into rhizomes with distant leaves. Roots numerous, slender, up to 0.4 mm diam. Leaves 1-pinnatifid, 1-4 × 0.4-1.5 cm; blade up to 3.5 cm long, obovate, membranous, bright green, often with the proximal pinnae especially covered with brown pigment, glabrous; midrib not raised on ventral surface; pinnae 6-10 pairs, not or scarcely overlapping, cut to rhachis, broadly elliptic to suborbicular; teeth numerous, us. on all pinnae, up to 12 per pinna, extending completely around the margin or lacking on the proximal side, cut ca. 1/3 across pinna, narrowly triangular to oblong, acute or mucronate, larger ones sts themselves with 1 or 2 teeth. Peduncles us. borne on rhizomes, ca. equal to leaves, 0.5-1.5 cm, nude or with 1 simple bract, sparsely pilose. Monoecious. Heads 2-6 mm diam.; surface convex; involucre upcurved to flat; phyllaries 8-12 in 2 subequal rows, broadly elliptic, green, glabrous, with broad red-brown scarious margins, not growing after anthesis; pistillate florets 20-45 in 2 or more rows, ca. 1.5 mm long, exceeding phyllaries, slightly curved, yellow-green; corolla slightly longer than wide, with almost equal teeth; staminate florets fewer, 10-15. Achenes up to 1.3 × 0.6 mm, slightly compressed, in section almost round or irregularly angled, with a pale unwrinkled papery surface turning brown and smooth. Flowers in spring.