Antennaria microphylla Rydb.
white pussytoes (littleleaf pussytoes)
Asteraceae (Aster family)
Introduction to Vascular Plants
white pussytoes (littleleaf pussytoes)
Asteraceae (Aster family)
Introduction to Vascular Plants
Species Information
General:
Perennial herb, mat-forming with numerous leafy stolons 1-6 cm long; stems erect, several, branched above, densely woolly-hairy and glandular above, 8-40 cm tall.
Leaves:
Basal leaves spoon-shaped to broadly lance-shaped, grey to white woolly-hairy above and below, 6-30 mm long, 2-8 mm wide, abruptly sharp-pointed, with a sharp, slender tip; stem leaves similar, 5-30 mm long, linear to lanceolate, abruptly sharp-pointed.
Flowers:
Heads several to many in compact, rounded cluster; involucres of 2 types, the female ones 5.5-7.0 mm tall, hairy at the base, the male ones similar, 5.0-6.5 mm tall; involucral bracts lanceolate, the upper papery portion white to light yellow, often greenish at the base; female flowers 3.0-4.5 mm long, male flowers 2.5-3.0 mm long.
Fruits:
Female achenes 0.6-1.2 mm long, glabrous or sparingly warty, the pappus white with hairlike bristles, 3-5 mm long; male pappus hairs club-shaped and toothed at the the tips, 3-4 mm long.
Notes:
In recent years, some taxonomists (e.g., Hitchcock and Cronquist 1973; Douglas et al. 1989, 1995) merged both A. nitida and A. rosea with A. microphylla. Bayer and Stebbins (1993), however, have separated the latter from A. rosea. Upon examining hundreds of herbaria sheets of A. microphylla (which included those recognized by Bayer and Stebbins [1993] as A. rosea) at the Royal BC Museum, it appears that of all the plants which had white or yellowish-white (as stated in Bayer [1996]) involucral bracts, only a small percentage had glands on the upper stems. Therefore, A. microphylla as circumscribed by Bayer and Stebbins (1993) is infrequent in BC.
Illustration
If more than one illustration is available for a species (e.g., separate illustrations were provided for two subspecies) then links to the separate images will be provided below. Note that individual subspecies or varietal illustrations are not always available.
Illustration Source: The Illustrated Flora of British Columbia
USDA Species Characteristics
Flower Colour:
White
Blooming Period:
Mid Spring
Fruit/Seed characteristics:
Colour: Brown
Present from Spring to Summer
Source: The USDA
Ecology
Ecological Framework for Antennaria microphylla
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)
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)
| Site Information |
Value / Class |
||
|
Avg |
Min |
Max |
|
| Elevation
(metres) |
1195 | 170 | 2470 |
| Slope
Gradient (%) |
25 | 0 | 360 |
|
Aspect (degrees) |
196 | 0 | 360 |
| Soil
Moisture Regime (SMR) [0 - very xeric; 4 - mesic; 8 - hydric] |
2 | 0 | 7 |
| Modal
Nutrient Regime
Class |
C | ||
| #
of field plots species was recorded in: |
1552 | ||
| Modal
BEC Zone Class |
IDF | ||
|
All BEC Zones (# of stations/zone) species was recorded in |
AT(6), BAFA(6), BG(83), BWBS(13), ESSF(286), ICH(44), IDF(589), IMA(2), MH(1), MS(207), PP(171), SBPS(35), SBS(47), SWB(6) | ||
|
Source:
Klinkenberg 2013
|
|||
Habitat and Range
Mesic to dry slopes and open forests from the lowland to the alpine zones; infrequent throughout BC, except absent on N Vancouver Island and the Queen Charlotte Islands; N to AK, YT and NT, E to PQ and S to NM.Status Information
Synonyms
Synonyms and Alternate Names:
Antennaria bracteosa Rydb.
Antennaria nitida Greene
Antennaria rosea var. nitida (Greene) Breitung
Antennaria solstitialis Lunell