Leptinella nana or pygmy button daisy is endemic to the North and South Islands. It is one of New Zealand’s most threatened species, and is nationally critical. In the North Island it is only known from the south western coastline at one site near Titahi Bay. In the South Island it is known from two sites, one at the Rai Valley, Marlborough and the other near Mount Pleasant (this population is under rocky bluffs on the Lyttelton Bluff Track), in the Port Hills, near Christchurch, Canterbury. Leptinella nana’s habitat varies from forest to coastal and montane cliff-top grassland, but common features are the need for disturbance patches, shelter, and supply of moisture. The species appears to have adopted a strategy of constant colonisation of small patches of bare ground and so occupies a highly dynamic and changing micro-habitat.  Leptinella nana is a very small, perennial herb which forms very low open mats. Easily distinguished from all other indigenous, small-leaved, diminutive Leptinella species by the branches which radiate from a central cluster, rhizome leaves crowded at the apex, short shorts absent or reduced, leaf bases, phyllaries and florets which lack dark veins; and by the slender rhizomes up to 0.5 mm diameter, membranous leaves, and yellow-green capitula up to 2 mm diameter.  It flowers from early spring to end of October and early autumn to early winter.  As it is very small it is easily lost by being over topped by taller plants. It does best in permanently open ground. An ideal plant, once established for high impact areas, though it seems to prefer a damp soil to do best.  This plant is extremely threatened, and the likely factors in any local extinction of Leptinella nana include loss of temporary open sites for colonisation, increased competition from other plants, opening up of protective vegetation allowing sites to dry out or become weedy, increased erosion or deposition of debris, excessive trampling by people and animals, loss of seed dispersal vectors like terrestrial birds and other animals, seed loss to unsuitable habitat, and indiscriminate herbicide use. Slugs are a threat to cultivated plants of Leptinella nana.