Class
Order
Family
Genus
Classification
Nomenclature
Scientific Name:
Leptinella minor Hook.f., Bot. Antarct. Voy. II. (Fl. Nov.-Zel.) Part I, 142 (1852)
Synonymy:
- ≡ Cotula minor (Hook.f.) Hook.f., Handb. New Zealand Fl. 142 (1864)
- = Cotula haastii Kirk, Stud. Fl. New Zealand 325 (1899)
Description
A creeping perennial herb forming open patches. Rhizomes on the soil surface, slender to stout, 0.5-2.0 mm diam.; branches produced earlier in season clustered, up to ca. 5 radiating from around a flowering node; branches produced later in season us. single at flowering nodes. Leaves 3-many clustered at the apex, under better conditions older leaves up to 2 cm apart. Short shoots absent or with 1-few small leaves. Roots ± thick, 0.5-1.0 mm diam. Leaves 1-pinnatifid, 1-5 × 0.3-1.0 cm; blade 0.3-4.0 cm, obovate, coriaceous, dull green, usually with brown pigment on proximal pinnae, ± glabrous; pinnae 5-12 pairs, not overlapping, cut to rhachis, obovate, teeth 0 or up to 7 per pinna, us. restricted to proximal pinnae, on distal margins, cut ½-2/3 across pinna, oblong, obtuse and minutely mucronate. Peduncles borne on rhizomes, equal to or longer than leaves, slender, 2-5 cm, nude or with 1 simple bract, pilose. Monoecious. Heads 4-6 mm diam.; surface convex; involucre outspread; phyllaries 15-20 in 2 equal rows, suborbicular, pilose, with a wide brown scarious margin, not growing after anthesis; pistillate florets 70-130 in 2 or more rows, ca. 1.75 mm long, straight, white; corolla twice as long as wide, with equal teeth; staminate florets ca. equal in number. Achenes ca. 1.0 × 0.5 mm, slightly compressed but almost round in section, pale brown, transversely wrinkled. Flowers through the spring and summer and at a reduced rate in autumn and occ. winter.
[Reproduced from Lloyd (1972, New Zealand J. Bot. 10: 277–372, as Cotula minor (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. 1852–1853 ("1853"): 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. II. Flora Novae-Zelandiae. Part I. Flowering plants. Lovell Reeve, 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.
Kirk,T. 1899: The Students' Flora of New Zealand and the Outlying Islands. Government Printer, Wellington, N.Z.
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 minor (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.
