''Leptinella'' is a genus of

alpine Alpine may refer to any mountainous region. It may also refer to: Places Europe * Alps, a European mountain range ** Alpine states, which overlap with the European range Australia * Alpine, New South Wales, a Northern Village * Alpine National Pa ...

flowering plant Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (), commonly called angiosperms. The term "angiosperm" is derived from the Greek words ('container, vessel') and ('seed'), and refers to those plants th ...

in the family

Asteraceae The family Asteraceae, alternatively Compositae, consists of over 32,000 known species of flowering plants in over 1,900 genera within the order Asterales. Commonly referred to as the aster, daisy, composite, or sunflower family, Compositae w ...

, comprising 33 species, distributed in

New Guinea New Guinea (; Hiri Motu Hiri Motu, also known as Police Motu, Pidgin Motu, or just Hiri, is a language of Papua New Guinea, which is spoken in surrounding areas of Port Moresby (Capital of Papua New Guinea). It is a simplified version of ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...

, and

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the southe ...

. Many of the species are

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found 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 found elsew ...

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

Cotula ''Cotula'' is a genus of flowering plant in the sunflower family. It includes plants known generally as water buttons or buttonweeds. The species within this genus can vary extensively in their habit, leaf division, involucre, receptacle and ...

'', 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 of flowering plants in the family, Asteraceae, and the subfamily Asteroideae. They are distributed worldwide with concentrations in central Asia, the Mediterranean Basin, and southern Africa.Oberprieler, C., et al. (2007) A ...

, by the conspicuous "inflated" corollas of the female

florets This glossary of botanical terms is a list of definitions of terms and concepts relevant to botany and plants in general. Terms of plant morphology are included here as well as at the more specific Glossary of plant morphology and Glossary o ...

and by

chromosome A chromosome is a long DNA molecule with part or all of the genetic material of an organism. In most chromosomes the very long thin DNA fibers are coated with packaging proteins; in eukaryotic cells the most important of these proteins are ...

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 Groundcover or ground cover is any plant that grows over an area of ground. Groundcover provides protection of the topsoil from erosion and drought. In an ecosystem, the ground cover forms the layer of vegetation below the shrub layer known as t ...

and as a component in

tapestry lawn A tapestry lawn (also referred to as a grass-free lawn) is a lawn format that has no grass component. It uses a variety of different mowing tolerant perennial forb species in combination. The overall visual effect of the many species of plant grown ...

s. ; 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