Pussytoes are white-woolly perennials with simple, mostly entire, alternate and basal leaves, the latter generally tufted, with the stem leaves generally more or less reduced upwards. The plants have male and female flowers on separate plants. The flowerheads are solitary to rather many in a usually congested flower cluster, containing many disk flowers. The involucral bracts partly overlap in several series. They are membranous at least at the tip, and often colored. The receptacle is flat or convex, naked. The anthers are tail-tipped. The male flowers usually have an undivided style and scanty pappus, the bristles commonly being club-shaped or in a few species merely finely barbed. The female flowers have a very thin trumpet-shaped corolla, a 2-cleft style, and copious hair-like naked bristles that are slightly united at the base. The achenes are cylindrical or slightly flattened. The genus consists of about 25 or 30 species worldwide, centering in the western cordillera, but extending nearly throughout the U.S. and Canada, and circumpolar at the north. They are also found in s. S. America. The name comes from the Latin, in allusion to the fancied resemblance of the pappus of the male flowers to insect antennae.
Guide to Identify Presented Species of Genus Antennaria
PLANTS FORMING MATS, RUNNERS PRESENT PLANTS OF LOWER TO MEDIUM ELEVATIONS
A. rosea Rosy Pussytoes Mat-forming, slender plant, 5-40 cm tall. Dry, open areas, plains to montane.
Flowerheads pink or white, 4-7 mm long, 5-10 growing in flat-topped clusters.
Leaves gray-hairy, alternate, few on stem. Basal leaves spoon-shaped.