Class
Order
Family
Genus
Classification
Nomenclature
Scientific Name:
Leptinella intermedia (D.G.Lloyd) D.G.Lloyd & C.J.Webb, New Zealand J. Bot. 25: 103 (1987)
Synonymy:
- ≡ Cotula intermedia D.G.Lloyd, New Zealand J. Bot. 10: 336-338 (1972)
Description
A small creeping perennial herb with tufts of leaves in turf. Rhizomes shallowly buried, initially dark, flexible, and sparsely pilose, becoming pale stiff and glabrous; branches uncommon, us. single at flowering nodes; leaves spirally arranged, 1-2 at the apex, 0.5-1.0 cm apart. Short shoots grow ± upwards from the rhizome, with up to 5 tufted leaves at the apex. Roots slender and weak, up to 0.6 mm diam. Leaves 1-pinnatifid, 0.8-4.0 × 0.2-1.2 cm; blade 0.4-3.0 cm long, elliptic, coriaceous, light green, sts with brown pigment especially on proximal pinnae, glabrous; midrib sts slightly raised on ventral surface; pinna 4-10 pairs, not overlapping, cut to rhachis, elliptic; teeth us. few per pinna, up to 5 on distal margin and 3 on proximal margin, cut up to ½ across pinna, triangular, obtuse. Peduncles us. borne on rhizomes, ca. equal to leaves, ca. 3 cm, ± villous, nude or with 1 simple bract. Monoecious. Heads 4-5 mm diam.; surface convex; involucre hemispherical, phyllaries ca. 12 in 1-2 subequal rows, broadly elliptic, dark green, ± villous, with wide brown scarious margin, not growing after anthesis; pistillate florets few, up to 10 in 1 incom- plete row, ca. 2.0 mm long, almost straight, yellow-green; corolla slightly longer than wide, with almost equal teeth; staminate florets much more numerous, ca. 40. Achenes up to 1.3 × 0.9 mm, compressed, biconvex, golden brown, unwrinkled. Probably flowers principally in summer.
[Reproduced from Lloyd (1972, New Zealand J. Bot. 10: 277–372, as Cotula intermedia Lloyd) with permission from The Royal Society of New Zealand.]
Biostatus
Indigenous (Endemic)
Bibliography
de Lange, P.J.; Norton, D.A.; Courtney, S.P.; Heenan, P.B.; Barkla, J.W.; Cameron, E.K.; Hitchmough, R.; Townsend, A.J. 2009: Threatened and uncommon plants of New Zealand (2008 revision). New Zealand Journal of Botany 47: 61–96. [Not threatened]
de Lange, P.J.; Norton, D.A.; Heenan, P.B.; Courtney, S.P.; Molloy, B.P.J.; Ogle, C.C.; Rance, B.D. 2004: Threatened and uncommon plants of New Zealand. New Zealand Journal of Botany 42(1): 45–76.
de Lange, P.J.; Rolfe, J.R.; Barkla J.W.; Courtney, S.P.; Champion, P.D.; Perrie, L.R.; Beadel, S.N.; Ford, K.A.; Breitwieser, I.; Schönberger, I.; Hindmarsh-Walls, R.; Heenan, P.B.; Ladley, K. 2018: Conservation status of New Zealand indigenous vascular plants, 2017. New Zealand Threat Classification Series. No. 22. [Data Deficient]
Lloyd, D.G. 1972: A revision of the New Zealand, Subantarctic, and South American species of Cotula, section Leptinella. New Zealand Journal of Botany 10: 277–372.
Lloyd, D.G.; Webb, C. J. 1987: The reinstatement of Leptinella at generic rank, and the status of the 'Cotuleae' (Asteraceae, Anthemideae). New Zealand Journal of Botany 25: 99–105.
