Class
Order
Family
Genus
Classification
Nomenclature
Scientific Name:
Leptinella lanata Hook.f., Bot. Antarct. Voy. I. (Fl. Antarct.) Part I, 26, t. 19 (1844)
Synonymy:
- ≡ Cotula lanata (Hook.f.) Hook.f., Handb. New Zealand Fl. 141 (1864)
Description
A robust but small-leaved, diffusely creeping perennial herb. Rhizomes on soil or rock surface, stout, 1-4 mm diam., covered with a thick mat of tangled woolly hairs but eventually becoming ± glabrous, brown and slightly woody; branches us. clustered, up to 4 radiating from around a flowering node, often repeated every few nodes several times per season; leaves 2-4 clustered at the apex, most 2-5 cm distant. Short shoots us. absent, occ. present as a few reduced leaves. Roots largely confined to older stems, us. slender, up to 1 mm diam. Leaves 1-pinnatifid, 1.0-2.5 × 0.4-1.0 cm; blade 0.5-2.0 cm long, broadly elliptic, thick, subfleshy, light green, with a few woolly hairs when young, especially on rhachis, later glabrous; midrib not raised on ventral surface; pinnae 3-5 pairs, distal ones overlapping, cut to rhachis, broadly elliptic or oblong if undivided; teeth up to 4 per pinna, on larger pinnae, mostly on distal margin, cut ca. ½ across pinna, triangular, obtuse. Peduncles borne on rhizomes, longer than leaves, 1-3 cm, nude, slender but with a thick mat of woolly hairs. Monoecious. Heads 0.6-1.0 cm diam., surface hemispherical; involucre hemispherical; phyllaries ca. 30 in 2-3 subequal rows, broadly elliptic, thick and subfleshy, green with deciduous woolly hairs and a narrow us. transparent scarious margin, not growing after anthesis; pistillate florets 50-100 in 2 or more rows, ca. 3.0 mm long, almost straight, yellow-green, corolla twice as long as wide, with equal teeth, staminate florets fewer, 70-90. Achenes up to 2.3 × 0.8 mm, not compressed, obscurely 4-angled, golden-brown, shiny, unwrinkled. Probably flowers from spring to autumn.
[Reproduced from Lloyd (1972, New Zealand J. Bot. 10: 277–372, as Cotula lanata (Hook.f.) Hook.f.) 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. [Naturally uncommon]
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. [Naturally Uncommon]
de Lange, P.J.; Rolfe, J.R.; Champion, P.D.; Courtney, S.P.; Heenan, P.B.; Barkla, J.W.; Cameron, E.K.; Norton, D.A.; Hitchmough, R.A. 2013: Conservation status of New Zealand indigenous vascular plants, 2012. New Zealand Threat Classification Series 3. Department of Conservation, Wellington. [Naturally Uncommon]
Hooker, J.D. 1844–1845: The Botany of the Antarctic Voyage of H.M. Discovery Ships Erebus and Terror in the Years 1839–1843, under the command of Captain Sir James Clark Ross. I. Flora Antarctica. Part I. Botany of Lord Auckland’s Group and Campbell’s Island. Reeve, Brothers, London.
Hooker, J.D. 1864: Handbook of the New Zealand Flora: a systematic description of the native plants of New Zealand and the Chatham, Kermadec's, Lord Auckland's, Campbell's and Macquarie's Islands. Part I. Reeve, London.
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. [as Cotula lanata (Hook.f.) Hook.f.]
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.
