Authors: Lam.
forming a tight, small cluster of prostrate rosettes from a branched crown, old dead leaves persisting around the bases of the living foliage, covered throughout in various combinations of simple, branched and starry hairs. Leaves acute, lanceolate, the basal ones l-3cm by 2-8mm , normally entire, but sometimes having two to eight large, weak teeth. Stem leaves two to six, erect. Flowering stems erect. Flowers eight to thirty in racemes dense at first, but elongating gradually (up to a maximum of 30cm in seed), white, 4-5mm in diameter, spring to late summer in the wild. D. chodatii is said to differ in its leafless to three-spreading-leaved stems, but can probably safely be regarded as a synonym of the present species. Falkland Islands, Argentina and Chile northwards up the Andes to the high Atacama in mountain cushion communities and in the south in all communities except saturated peatland and too shady habitats, from sea level to 5000m. A variable species, Falkland plants being notably compact. A member of the only cosmopolitan section of the genus to contain perennial Andeans. See also D. daurica.
