flexuous

Auden wanted to steer the art away from truth-claims and toward something more flexuous and subtle—a mode, not a message.

Stem slender, often flexuous, 1–3° high, less leafy, bearing few or several heads on divergent peduncles; leaves obovate to ovate or oblong-lanceolate, narrowed at base and ciliate, the midrib hairy beneath; scales more imbricated, thicker and more obtuse; pappus more rigid.

Low, decumbent, somewhat woody, diffusely branched, puberulent; branches slender, flexuous; leaves narrow; flowers few, small; capsules pubescent, about equalling the pedicel.

Crown of 5 free membranaceous leaflets, which are truncate or obscurely lobed at the apex, where they bear a pair of flexuous awns united at base.

Very similar, but smoother and deeper green, with more slender, linear-cylindric, more or less flexuous spikes, the lateral ones spreading or divaricate, and the sepals more frequently acute or acuminate.