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Australian waterbuttons

Cotula australis

Also called Annual Buttonweed, Australian Brass Buttons, Common Cotula, Soldier's Button, Australian Water Buttons, Bachelor's Button, Carrotweed

Australian waterbuttons
Photo: Macleay Grass Man, CC BY 2.0

Cotula australis is a small annual daisy-family weed that forms a low, thin mat with tiny yellow button flowers. It is a common lawn and garden weed that thrives in disturbed, damp ground and is easy to remove by hand.

Family
Asteraceae (Daisy family)
Grows as
Annual
Light
Full sun, Part shade
Water
Grows in damp to moist soil and is found in lawns and wet ground; it needs no special watering.
Soil
Tolerates a wide range of soils, especially damp, compacted or disturbed ground.
Temperature
Tolerates a wide range of temperatures; grows as a winter or spring annual in cooler areas and as a year-round weed in mild climates.
How easy
Easy
Native range
Zimbabwe to S. Africa, Madagascar, Australasia
Climate
subtropical

About

Cotula australis is a species of plant in the daisy family known by the common names bachelor's buttons, annual buttonweed, 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.).

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.

Other Cotula plants

Waterbuttons

Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Cotula australis by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.

The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.

Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.

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