Classification
Class
Magnoliopsida Brongn.
Order
Asterales Link
Family
Compositae Giseke
Genus
Leptinella Cass.
 Nomenclature
Scientific Name:
Leptinella filiformis (Hook.f.) D.G.Lloyd & C.J.Webb, New Zealand J. Bot. 25: 103 (1987)
Synonymy:
  • ≡ Cotula filiformis Hook.f., Handb. New Zealand Fl. 142 (1864)
 Description

A creeping perennial herb forming open patches. Rhizomes on the soil surface, slender, less than 1 mm diam., brown, sparsely pilose; branches us. single at flowering nodes but sts 2-3 clustered; leaves 3-many clustered at the apex, older leaves up to 1.5 cm apart. Short shoots absent or with 1-few small leaves. Roots slender, less than 0.5 mm diam. Leaves 1-pinnatifid, 0.3-2.0 × 0.2-0.4 cm; blade 0.2-1.5 cm, oblong to obovate, coriaceous, dull green, sts with brown pigment, ± glabrous; pinnae 4-10 pairs, not overlapping, cut to rhachis, obovate; teeth us. absent, occ. 1-3, on distal margins of proximal pinnae, cut ½-2/3 across pinna, triangular, obtuse and minutely mucronate. Peduncles borne on rhizomes, longer than leaves, slender, 1-3 cm, nude or with 1 simple bract, pilose. Monoecious. Heads 2-3 mm diam.; surface convex; involucre outspread; phyllaries 8-14 in 2 equal rows, suborbicular, pilose, with a wide brown scarious margin, not growing after anthesis; pistillate florets 15-50 in 2 or more rows, ca. 1.0 mm long, straight, white; corolla twice as long as wide, with equal teeth; staminate florets ca. equal in number. Achenes 0.85 × 0.5 mm. slightly compressed but almost round in section, pale brown, transversely wrinkled.

[Reproduced from Lloyd (1972, New Zealand J. Bot. 10: 277–372, as Cotula filiformis 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. [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 Critical]
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 Critical]
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 filiformis 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.