Leptinella dendyi
Common name
Dendy’s scree button daisy
Synonyms
Cotula dendyi Cockayne
Family
Asteraceae
Flora category
Vascular – Native
Endemic taxon
Yes
Endemic genus
No
Endemic family
No
Structural class
Herbs - Dicotyledonous composites
NVS code
The National Vegetation Survey (NVS) Databank is a physical archive and electronic databank containing records of over 94,000 vegetation survey plots - including data from over 19,000 permanent plots. NVS maintains a standard set of species code abbreviations that correspond to standard scientific plant names from the Ngä Tipu o Aotearoa - New Zealand Plants database.
LEPDEN
Chromosome number
2n = 52
Current conservation status
The threat classification status of all known New Zealand vascular plant taxa at the rank of species and below were reassessed in 2017 using the New Zealand Threat Classification System (NZTCS) – more information about this can be found on the NZTCS website This report includes a statistical summary and brief notes on changes since 2012 and replaces all previous NZTCS lists for vascular plants. Authors: By Peter J. de Lange, Jeremy R. Rolfe, John W. Barkla, Shannel P. Courtney, Paul D. Champion, Leon R. Perrie, Sarah M. Beadel, Kerry A. Ford, Ilse Breitwieser, Ines Schönberger, Rowan Hindmarsh-Walls, Peter B. Heenan and Kate Ladley. Please note, threat classifications are often suggested by authors when publications fall between NZTCS assessment periods – a suggested threat classification status has not been assessed by the NZTCS panel.
Source: NZTCS and licensed by DOC for reuse under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence.
2017 | Not Threatened
Previous conservation statuses
2012 | Not Threatened
2009 | Not Threatened
2004 | Not Threatened
Distribution
Endemic. South Island, east of the main divide from Eastern Nelson and Marlborough south to Canterbury.
Habitat
Subalpine to alpine (> 1000 m a.s.l.) in open, mobile, sparsely vegetated screes.
Features
Fleshy, gynodioecious, perennial herb producing 1 or more summer green leaf tufts amongst mobile scree. Rhizomes ascending, at or close to rock surface when young, becoming deeply buried with age, up to 10 mm long, thick, very fleshy, pale or pinkish-red, sparsely short-hairy, glabrate; branches often in clusters of up to 4 diverging from a flowering node and the nodes immediately behind, most of these dying in the first season, leaves usually crowded around rhizome apex, sometimes up to 25 mm apart. Roots numerous, fleshy, very long, extensively branching, thick up to 1.5 mm diameter. Leaves 2-pinnatifid, 20-50 x 3-80 mm; blade 10-30 mm long, narrowly obovate, coriaceous and fleshy, grey-green tinged with red, especially on the primary and secondary axes, sparsely pilose hairy, midrib not raised on ventral surface; pinnae 8-12 pairs, cut to rhachis, proximal pinnae distant, distal ones overlapping, broadly elliptic and divided, reducing to distant oblong simple proximal pinnae; secondary pinnae 9 per pinna, equally on distal and proximal sides, cut to midrib of pinna, with rounded apices, upturned at an angle to the balde, occasionally with a linear lobe on one or both sides. Peduncles longer than leaves, 30-80 mm, stout, fleshy, pilose hairy with 6-15 evenly spaced bracts; lowermost bracts scarcely smaller than leaves, reducing evenly to simple, oblong or 1-pinnatifid uppermost bracts. Capitula either female, male or perfect in varying proprotions within populations. Pistillate capitula up to 20 mm diameter, surface flat; involucre spreading and upturned at margins; involucral bracts numerous, unequally 2-, to multiseriate, grey-green tinged red, more or less pilose hairy, outer bracts exceeding florets, thick, simple and oblong with 1-8 oblong lobes on both sides (scarious margins absent), gradually changing to thinner, simple, obovate inner involucral bracts with finely scarious margins; receptacle more or less flat; florets 200-900 in many rows, 3.25-4.25 mm long, straight, pale yellow with brown corolla teeth, the whole corolla turning brown after anthesis; corolla 4 times as long as wide, teeth conspicuous, equal and diverging; staminate florets < 10 mm diameter; surface convex, involucre hemispherical; florets 120-450. Cypsela 2.9 x 0.7 mm, slightly compressed, golden brown, deeply wrinked when mature
Similar taxa
Differs from L. atrata (Hook.f.) D.G.Lloyd et C.Webb subsp. atrata and subsp. luteola (D.G.Lloyd) D.G.Lloyd et C.Webb by large capitula (20 cf 12-13 mm respectively), flat receptacle, and gynodioecious rather than monoecious flowers. The florets of L. atrata subsp. luteola are yellow with red tips, while those of L. dendyi are yellow with red-brown tips.
Flowering
November - January
Flower colours
Brown, Yellow
Fruiting
January - April
Life cycle
Papery cypselae are dispersed by wind and possibly attachment (Thorsen et al., 2009).
Propagation technique
Difficult - should not be removed from the wild
Etymology
leptinella: From the Greek word leptos (meaning slender, thin or delicate), referring to the ovary
Where To Buy
Not commercially available
Attribution
Fact sheet prepared for NZPCN by P.J. de Lange 31 August 2006. Description from Lloyd (1972) - as Cotula dendyi.
References and further reading
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.
Thorsen, M. J.; Dickinson, K. J. M.; Seddon, P. J. 2009. Seed dispersal systems in the New Zealand flora. Perspectives in Plant Ecology, Evolution and Systematics 11: 285-309.
NZPCN Fact Sheet citation
Please cite as: de Lange, P.J. (Year at time of access): Leptinella dendyi Fact Sheet (content continuously updated). New Zealand Plant Conservation Network. https://www.nzpcn.org.nz/flora/species/leptinella-dendyi/ (Date website was queried)