Classification
Class
Magnoliopsida Brongn.
Order
Asterales Link
Family
Compositae Giseke
Genus
Leptinella Cass.
 Nomenclature
Scientific Name:
Leptinella rotundata (Cheeseman) D.G.Lloyd & C.J.Webb, New Zealand J. Bot. 25: 102 (1987)
Synonymy:
  • ≡ Cotula dioica var. rotundata Cheeseman, Man. New Zealand Fl. 359 (1906)
  • ≡ Cotula rotundata (Cheeseman) D.G.Lloyd, New Zealand J. Bot. 10: 314-316 (1972)
 Description

A creeping perennial herb forming a loose turf. Rhizomes on soil surface, rather slender, green or dark, flexible, sparsely villous; branches uncommon, usually single at flowering nodes; leaves in two rows, single at the apex, 1-3 cm apart. Short shoots alternate on both sides of the rhizome, with us. only 3 or 4 leaves but often converted into rhizomes with distant leaves. Roots slender and weak, up to 0.6 mm diam. Leaves simple, 1-5 × 0.5-1.5 cm; blade 0.5-1.5 cm long, suborbicular, membranous, yellow-green, without brown pigment, sparsely but evenly covered with long hairs, with a cuneate base and rounded apex, veins not evident on ventral surface, crenate; teeth 9-15 per pinna, around the distal ½ - 2/3 of blade, shallow, broadly triangular, mucronate. Peduncles borne on rhizomes, longer than leaves, 2-6 cm, nude or with 1 simple bract, villous. Monoecious, each plant with a mixture of staminate and bisexual heads. Heads 5-7 mm diam.; surface convex; involucre hemispherical; phyllaries 6-12 in 1-2 subequal rows, broadly elliptic, green, villous, with a broad, sts brown-tipped, scarious margin; inner phyllaries grow a little after anthesis to incompletely enclose the head; pistillate florets often 0, us. less than 5 but up to 12, in 1 incomplete row, ca. 2.0 mm long, slightly curved, yellowgreen; corolla equal in length and width, with unequal teeth; staminate florets much more numerous, 40-90. Achenes up to 1.9 × 1.1 mm, not or slightly compressed, in section ± round, with a pale unwrinkled papery surface turning brown and smooth. Flowers in summer.

[Reproduced from Lloyd (1972, New Zealand J. Bot. 10: 277–372, as Cotula rotundata (Cheeseman) D.G.Lloyd) with permission from The Royal Society of New Zealand.]

 Biostatus
Indigenous (Endemic)
 Bibliography
Cheeseman, T.F. 1906: Manual of the New Zealand Flora. Government Printer, Wellington.
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. [Nationally Critical]
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. [Nationally Endangered]
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. [Nationally Vulnerable]
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.