Senecio fontanicola is endemic to black-bog-rush fens of southern Austria, north-western Slovenia and north-eastern Italy. It is characterized by oblanceolate leaves, a low number of supplementary bracts and glabrous achenes and it grows in marshy spring areas, fens and reed beds, between elevations from 20 to 850 m . The species was never described with molecular traits and during the last decades, S. fontanicola showed a dramatic decline due to land reclamation for agriculture. Therefore, the present study aims to characterize S. fontanicola using the molecular barcoding technique and to updated its distribution to propose a global risk category for the species, based on IUCN criteria. The three molecular markers used in this study (trnH-psbA, rbcL, and ITS) clearly distinguished S. fontanicola from S. doria. s.s.and the revised distribution allowed the definition of the conservation status of the species, that is Endangered-EN B2ab(i,ii,iii,iv) following the B criterion of the IUCN guidelines
