General: Perennial herbs from rhizomes; stems usually unbranched, leafy, white-woolly, 20-90 cm tall.
Leaves: Basal leaves few, deciduous; stem leaves alternate, narrowly lance-shaped with a conspicuous mid-vein, 2-15 cm long, 0.5-2 cm wide, greenish above, white-woolly beneath; margins often rolled under.
Flowers: Heads small, discoid, in dense flat-topped clusters; involucres 5-7 mm tall, woolly at the base; involucral bracts dry, pearly white, sometimes with a dark basal spot; disk flowers yellowish.
Fruits: Achenes small, to about 1 mm long; roughened; glabrous to sparsely hairy; pappus hairs white.
Moist to dry meadows, open forests, logging units, fields and roadsides in the lowland, montane and subalpine zones; common throughout all but NE BC; N to AK, YT, and NT, E to NF and NS and S to NC, KY, AZ, NM and CA.
The table below shows the species-specific information calculated from original data (BEC database) provided by the BC Ministry of Forests and Range. (Updated August, 2013)
A shade-intolerant, submontane to subalpine, Asian and transcontinental North America forb. Occurs on water-shedding sites within alpine tundra, boreal. cool temperate, and cool mesothermal climates. Inhabits exposed mineral soil on cutover sites, clearings, and waysides. Under these circumstances often dominates initial stages of secondary succesÂsion. Characteristic of disturbed sites.
BC Ministry of Environment:BC Species and Ecosystems Explorer,
the authoritative source for conservation information in British Columbia.
Synonyms and Alternate Names
Anaphalis margaritacea var. angustior (Miq.) Nakai Anaphalis margaritacea var. intercedens H. Hara Anaphalis margaritacea var. occidentalis Greene Anaphalis margaritacea var. revoluta Suksd. Anaphalis margaritacea var. subalpina A. Gray Anaphalis occidentalis (Greene) A. Heller Gnaphalium margaritaceum L.
