PARK WATCH Article June 2025 |

Button Wrinklewort (Rutidosis leptorrhynchoides)

The Button Wrinklewort, as impossibly named in Latin as it is gloriously named in English, is a kind of daisy, and a rare grassland plant.

Some Button Wrinkleworts have two sets of chromosomes. Some are polyploid and have four. This bizarre feature of their genetics makes protecting this little gems all the harder.

Being rare, and a grassland plant, populations are isolated, fragmented, and prone in the long-term to loss of genetic diversity through inbreeding. To strengthen these populations, scientists want to bring in individuals from other populations, but they have to be from the right genetic group, two sets of chromosomes or four. It’s both an interesting curiosity and a pain in the butt.

The most important population of Button Wrinklewort hangs out in a cemetery in Truganina in Melbourne’s west. Like many old settler cemeteries, it’s a tiny hotspot of biodiversity protecting grassland remnants never trashed by sheep, fertiliser or the plough. Thank you, dead people!

But even that most-studied, most cared for population is in peril. For a start, in the last few years the fields have turned into houses. But more importantly, the plants aren’t reproducing, and no one knows why. Adding to its woes, the Button Wrinklewort is very sensitive to fire at the wrong time of year, just when it’s starting to bud.

But our lonely, magnificent friend does have secret fame. Driving into Melbourne on the Hume Freeway, opposite Craigieburn Grasslands, the soundwalls begin to shift and change: the white and translucent bars on those huge panels actually encode the Button Wrinklewort’s DNA sequence. What, you didn’t know? Talk about Plant Awareness Disparity.

Become a friend of the Lonely Button Wrinklewort at facebook.com/buttonwrinklewort