''Leptinella'' is a genus of alpine

flowering plant Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (). The term angiosperm is derived from the Ancient Greek, Greek words (; 'container, vessel') and (; 'seed'), meaning that the seeds are enclosed with ...

in the family

Asteraceae Asteraceae () is a large family (biology), family of flowering plants that consists of over 32,000 known species in over 1,900 genera within the Order (biology), order Asterales. The number of species in Asteraceae is rivaled only by the Orchi ...

, comprising 33 species, distributed in

New Guinea New Guinea (; Hiri Motu: ''Niu Gini''; , fossilized , also known as Papua or historically ) is the List of islands by area, world's second-largest island, with an area of . Located in Melanesia in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, the island is ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

, and

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...

. Many of the species are

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found only in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also foun ...

. For over 100 years, ''Leptinella'' species were considered part of the genus ''

Cotula ''Cotula'' is a genus of flowering plant in the Asteraceae, sunflower family. It includes plants known generally as water buttons or buttonweeds. The species within this genus can vary extensively in their Habit (biology), habit, Leaf#Morpholog ...

'', but the genus ''Leptinella'' was reinstated by Lloyd & Webb in 1987. They determined that all species of ''Leptinella'' are distinguished from those of the other two sections of ''Cotula'', and other

Anthemideae Anthemideae is a tribe (biology), tribe of flowering plants in the subfamily Asteroideae, which is part of the family Asteraceae. They are cosmopolitan distribution, distributed worldwide, with concentrations in central Asia, the Mediterranean Ba ...

, by the conspicuous "inflated" corollas of the female florets and by

chromosome A chromosome is a package of DNA containing part or all of the genetic material of an organism. In most chromosomes, the very long thin DNA fibers are coated with nucleosome-forming packaging proteins; in eukaryotic cells, the most import ...

numbers based on x = 26 where known. ''Leptinella squalida'' 'Platt's Black' is a form cultivated as a garden plant, and is used for ground cover and as a component in tapestry lawns. ; SpeciesFlann, C (ed) 2009+ Global Compositae Checklist
/ref>The Plant List search for ''Leptinella''
/ref>

References

External links

* * Asteraceae genera Alpine flora Anthemideae {{Anthemideae-stub