Anaphalis margaritacea / pearly everlasting
- hairy leaves and stems, often in dense colonies
- inflorescences dominated by white involucral bracts
- actual flowers are small, yellow and in the center
- commonly on dry soils
- great for dried flower arrangements
See also: Antennaria spp.. / pussytoes
Although there is great variation among composites in the type and number of flowers within a head, all composites have an involucre. In most species, those bracts are green and leaf-like and you have to turn the flowers over to see them. But in one subgroup, or tribe (the Inuleae), the bracts are white and membranous or woolly. In that way, pearly everlasting is like pussytoes, also in this tribe where the white bits are also bracts. And like those, these bracts remain fresh looking long after the central disk flowers have wilted. This explains their popularity in dried flower arrangements.
Of course, pearly everlasting still has actual flowers and they bloom from June well into September. In this case, they are composites of yellow disk florets, each of which is only about ¼ inch across. The technical name for the inflorescence is a corymb.
Pearly everlasting is dioecious, meaning the male and female flowers are on separate plants (usually). It’s hard to tell them apart without a hand lens to differentiate the stamens and pistils.
This species occurs commonly in dry soils of mountain meadows, prairies, and fallow fields. It spreads both by seed and by stolons. The individual plants are up to 3 feet tall with narrow, alternate leaves up to 5 inches long. The undersides of the leaves, especially, are densely covered with tiny hairs.
Pearly everlasting leaves are hosts to painted lady butterfly caterpillars, earning them another good recommendation.
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