Stock simple or with few branches, slender, merging into deeply descending taproot. Stems very slender, few to many, prostrate to straggling, up to 30 cm. or more long, often much-branched. Branchlets, petioles, laminae, peduncles and calyx rather thinly to ± densely clad in appressed retrorse white hairs. Lvs on very slender petioles up to ± 15 cm. long; lamina thin, (5)-10-20-(25) mm. diam., reniform in outline, cut to halfway or more into (3)-5-7 obcuneate lobes; lobes again divided into 1-5 oblong-cuneate, apiculate teeth. Stipules small, linear-acuminate. Peduncles 1-2-fld, up to ± 1 cm. long; fls ± 8 mm. diam.; sepals narrow-ovate to lanceolate, ± 3 mm. long, awned; petals white occ. pinkish, ± 5 mm. long, entire to retuse, sts with several blunt teeth, obovate, clawed. Carpels smooth, with appressed hairs, ± 10 mm. long including beak. Seeds finely striate-reticulate.

"Petioles dotted with spreading hairs. Blade rounded, broader than long, with 5-7 openly divided segments and the sinus rather wide, yellowish brown above, mottled with pale yellow, sparingly strigose, paler beneath and almost pubescent; segments with 3-5 rounded lobes or the outermost lobes subacute; peduncles and pedicels sparingly pilose. Flowers white; calyx with long hairs. Carpels dotted with minute hairs. Seeds striated. Habitat: Moist shaded valleys and bush margins . . .The variety was first shown to us by Mr. W. B. Brockie, and with him we collected it on the Port Hills and in the tributary valleys of the Hope River, near Hanmer."

"Leaves orbicular or broader than long, brownish or reddish brown, pubescent by fine retrorse hairs; segments 3-5-lobed, petioles, peduncles and pedicels pubescent. Flowers white; calyx with long hairs. Carpels silky. Seed striated. Habitat: Grassland from near sea-level to 900 m. . . . a common grassland plant easily separated from the form we refer to the type."

2n = 52–54

Perennial herb, often with thick or fairly thick caulorrhiza. Hairs soft, retrorse or antrorse, usually appressed and often short, rarely spreading. Stems slender, prostrate, sometimes spreading to suberect, usually with retrorse hairs, sometimes glabrescent at base; branches few to many. Basal lvs not generally persistent through growing season; petioles to c. 17 cm long; hairs retrorse, dense or moderately dense, occasionally scattered. Lamina to 4 cm diam., reniform to orbicular or broadly ovate, lobed to c. ⅞ way to midrib, sometimes shallowly lobed; lobes usually 3-5, narrowly to broadly obovate-cuneate or almost oblong, with few to many appressed hairs on both sides, rounded to acute or mucronate at apex; larger lobes usually with 2 ± oblong secondary lobes. Cauline lvs smaller, with fewer lobes. Peduncles (with pedicels) 1-6-(9) cm long, filiform, with dense, retrorse hairs; bracteoles linear to lanceolate; fls 1-(2). Sepals 3-5-(6) × 0.8-2-(2.5) mm, ± lanceolate to elliptic or elliptic-oblong, usually with a purple marginal line, sometimes completely purple; hairs usually appressed, at least in distal 1/2, sometimes long and glandular, occasionally few. Petals (4)-6-9 × 2.5-4.5 mm, broadly obovate, white. Mericarps 2-2.8 mm long, with moderately dense hairs; beak (6)-7-11 mm long. Seed 1.5-1.9 mm long, oblong, ± smooth, very rarely finely reticulate.