Cotula australis

Cotula australis
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Plantae
(unranked):	Angiosperms
(unranked):	Eudicots
(unranked):	Asterids
Order:	Asterales
Family:	Asteraceae
Subfamily:	Asteroideae
Genus:	Cotula
Species:	C. australis
Binomial name
Cotula australis (Sieber ex Spreng.) Hook.
Synonyms[1]
Anacyclus australis Sieber ex Spreng. Cotula venosa Colenso Lancisia australis (Sieber ex Spreng.) Rydb. Soliva tenella A.Cunn. Strongylosperma australe (Sieber ex Spreng.) Less.

Cotula australis is a species of plant in the daisy family known by the common names Bachelor's Buttons,^[2] annual buttonweed,^[3] southern waterbuttons and Australian waterbuttons. This small plant is native to Australia and New Zealand, but it is known in other areas of the world as a common weed (South America, California, Mexico, South Africa, etc.).^{[2][4][5][6][7][8]}

Cotula australis grows low to the ground in a thin mat with some slightly erect, spindly stems. The leaves are divided and subdivided into fringelike lobes. The plant flowers in inflorescences only a few millimetres wide containing minuscule yellow disc florets surrounded by greenish brown bracts and rudimentary ray florets that have been reduced to pistils with no stamens or corolla. The fruit is a tiny winged achene about a millimetre wide.^[9]

References

1. The Plant List, Cotula australis (Sieber ex Spreng.) Hook.f.
2. Atlas of Living Australia, Cotula australis (Sieber ex Spreng.) Hook.f., Bachelor's Buttons
3. "BSBI List 2007" (xls). Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland. Retrieved 2014-10-17.
4. Hooker, Joseph Dalton 1853. 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, part 2, Flora Novae-Zelandiae 1: 128
5. Biota of North America Program 2014 county distribution map
6. Jørgensen, P. M. & C. Ulloa Ulloa. 1994. Seed plants of the high Andes of Ecuador—A checklist. AAU Rep. 34: 1–443
7. Gibbs Russell, G. E., W. G. M. Welman, E. Retief, K. L. Immelman, G. Germishuizen, B. J. Pienaar, M. Van Wyk & A. Nicholas. 1987. List of species of southern African plants. Memoirs of the Botanical Survey of South Africa 2(1–2): 1–152(pt. 1), 1–270(pt. 2).
8. Turner, B. L. 1996. The Comps of Mexico: A systematic account of the family Asteraceae, vol. 6. Tageteae and Athemideae. Phytologia Memoirs 10: i–ii, 1–22, 43–93
9. Flora of North America, Cotula australis (Sieber ex Sprengel) Hooker f.

External links

• Jepson Manual Profile
• United States Department of Agriculture Plants Profile
• Weeds and IPM Profile, University of California @ Davis
• Calphotos Photo gallery, University of California @ Berkeley