Antennaria anaphaloides

Tall Everlasting

Stem Leaf Top Close-up

Just Below Edge of Plateau,
West Block, Cypress Hills
11-July-2003

The following are answers to questions in keys from Budd's Flora (BF) and Flora of Alberta (FOA).

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Anaphaloides:  Answers to key questions leading to this species.

Budd's Flora distinguishes A. anaphaloides from A. pulcherrima via the key questions labeled (BF-ap).  Flora of Alberta considers A. pulcherrima to be included in A. anaphaloides.  

The heads in these specimens are barely 6 mm high, as required by both Budd's Flora and Flora of Alberta.  Perhaps the specimens used to create these keys came from the Rocky Mountains instead of the Cypress Hills.  In addition, July 2003 was quite dry in the Cypress Hills.
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plants NOT low and densely caespitose

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plants with erect offshoots or none; NOT with prostrate leafy stolons, NOT mat-forming

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plants 20-50 cm high, NOT 10-20 cm high

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leaves mostly narrowly oblanceolate or lanceolate to linear; NOT small, ovate to spatulate

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lower leaves prominently 3-nerved

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basal leaves, if present, upright around the stem; NOT in well-developed appressed rosettes

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plants with well-developed stem leaves

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heads several on a stem

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heads 6-10 mm high; NOT 4-5 mm high (BF/FOA)

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involucral bracts in 3 or 4 series; NOT in 6 or 7 series (BF-ap)

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base of involucral bracts with or without a small dark spot; NOT with a large dark spot (BF-ap)

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involucral bracts NOT conspicuously dark green or brown below

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tip of involucral bracts white; NOT brownish or yellowish (BF-ap)

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involucral bracts scarious only at the tip

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involucral bracts woolly at the base

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pappus bristles of staminate heads clavate

 
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Antennaria: Answers to key questions leading to this genus.

Some of these answers do not apply to this species.  Those anomalous answers from Budd's Flora are marked (BF) and those from Flora of Alberta are marked (FOA). 
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juice watery

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low plants (BF)

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plants more or less white-woolly

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fibrous-rooted perennials, often with rhizomes or stolons, but without a taproot

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stems often stoloniferous

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leaves mostly basal, with stem leaves reduced (BF)

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basal leaves generally forming a conspicuous, persistent tuft

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stems seldom very leafy  (FOA)

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none of the leaves cordate or sagittate

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involucral bracts dry, thin, scarious, parchmenty or membranous, not green

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involucral bracts with white, yellow, or brown tips

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receptacle naked

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flower heads with all florets tubular (discoid heads)

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outer flowers, or all flowers of some heads, pistillate

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strictly dioecious (staminate plants rare in some species)

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pappus of numerous capillary bristles, sometimes plumose