Authors:
Convex cushion-forming, 3-12cm high and up to 40cm wide but usually much less, densely adpressed silvery-silky hairy throughout. The main taproot often branches into a network of rhizomes just below the surface where the plant is regularly buried by loose aggregates. Leaves pinnate-digitate 7-15mm long with seven to eleven obovate leaflets 2-4mm long. Flowers almost stemless, 4-8mm long, bright yellow with downy backs nestling in the foliage, spangled individually and usually rather sparsely over the surface of the cushion, summer. Lomenta of one or two semi-circular segments only. Chile and Argentina from the southern volcanic cordilleras, in open dwarf alpine steppe communities, usually in deep loose volcanic sands, but also on rocky scree slopes at 1800-2300m. A.g. var. glomerula has the corolla twice as long as the calyx. Northern central cordilleras down to northern Patagonia at 1700-3700m. (In var. australis the corolla scarcely exceeds the calyx.)
