Select all child elements recursively in CSS

Question

How can you select all child elements recursively?

div.dropdown, div.dropdown > * {
    color: red;
}

This class only throws a class on the defined className and all immediate children. How can you, in a simple way, pick all childNodes like this:

div.dropdown, 
div.dropdown > *, 
div.dropdown > * > *, 
div.dropdown > * > * > *, 
div.dropdown > * > * > * > * {
    color: red;
}

Answer 1

The rule is as following :

A B 

B as a descendant of A

A > B 

B as a child of A

So

div.dropdown *

and not

div.dropdown > *

Answer 2

Use a white space to match all descendants of an element:

div.dropdown * {
    color: red;
}

x y matches every element y that is inside x, however deeply nested it may be - children, grandchildren and so on.

The asterisk * matches any element.

Official Specification: CSS 2.1: Chapter 5.5: Descendant Selectors