Class
Order
Family
Genus
Classification
Nomenclature
Scientific Name:
Leptinella plumosa Hook.f., Bot. Antarct. Voy. I. (Fl. Antarct.) Part I, 26, t. 20 (1844)
Synonymy:
- ≡ Cotula plumosa (Hook.f.) Hook.f., Handb. New Zealand Fl. 141 (1864)
Description
A highly plastic, shortly creeping perennial herb. Rhizomes on soil surface, us. very thick, up to 1 cm diam., green, hard, glabrous to thinly but uniformly covered with tangled woolly hairs; branches single or clustered around flowering nodes, sts repeated several nodes later; leaves 4-8 tufted at the apex, older ones scattered up to 4 cm apart. Short shoots us. absent. Roots largely confined to older stems, up to 1 mm diam. Leaves very variable in size and divisions, 1-2 pinnatifid, 5-20 × 1-6 cm; blade 4-12 cm long, elliptic or broadly so, soft, light green, glabrous to moderately villous especially along rhachis, midrib not raised on ventral surface; pinnae 5-20 pairs, slightly overlapping, cut to rhachis, elliptic; secondary pinnae up to 13 per pinna, most on distal margin, cut to rhachis, simple and narrowly triangular or divided and elliptic; tertiary pinnae 0-6, mostly on outer margin of secondary pinnae, oblong or narrowly triangular; final divisions acute. Peduncles shorter than leaves, 6-12 cm, nude or with one simple or scarcely divided bract, with dense deciduous woolly hairs. Monoecious. Heads ca. 1 cm diam.; surface hemispherical; involucre hemispherical; phyllaries ca. 20 in 2 subequal rows, oblong or elliptic, thick, green, ± hairy when young, with a wide brown scarious margin (or tip only), not growing after anthesis; pistillate florets 90-260 in 3-6 rows, ca. 2.75 mm long, almost straight, yellow-green; corolla twice as long as wide, with equal teeth; staminate florets fewer or equal. Achenes up to 1.9 × 0.8 mm, not compressed, obscurely 4-angled, golden-brown, with a few shallow wrinkles. Probably flowers from spring to autumn.
[Reproduced from Lloyd (1972, New Zealand J. Bot. 10: 277–372, as Cotula plumosa (Hook.f.) Hook.f.) with permission from The Royal Society of New Zealand.]
Biostatus
Indigenous (Non-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 plumosa (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.
Turner, P.A.M.; Scott, J.J.; Rozefelds, A.C. 2006: Probable long distance dispersal of Leptinella plumosa Hook.f. to Heard Island: habitat, status and discussion of its arrival. Polar Biology 29: 160–168.
