PUSSY TOES 



Antennatia plantaginifolia (L.) Hook. 



April Pussy toes is a plant of poor soil, often acid, sterile 



Dry hills, woods soil where little else will grow. Here on the slopes 



and covering the cold clay, are the silvery-grey and 

 dark green rosettes of leaves A\hich remain throughout the year. The 

 leaves are long and are tapered to the base, more abruptly to the tip, and 

 are covered with long silky white hairs above and below. Since the under- 

 side of the leaves is pure white anyw^ay, the effect is that of a grey-green 

 leaf covered with white silk above and white flannel below. 



From the center of the rosette in very early spring there rise several 

 white, silky stalks with alternate leaves and a cluster of soft white flowers 

 at the top. The hairs of the flowers are so dense and the group so compact 

 that one at once is renunded of the resemblance to a tiny kitten's ])aw. It 

 is no wonder that children long ago, when they visited the woods in early 

 spring in search of the earliest flowers, called this plant "pussy toes''. It 

 is a plant which named itself. 



Pussy toes is a Composite, part of that com})lieated and highly efli- 

 cient group of plants to which belong the sunflowers, the asters, the gold- 

 enrods, the dandelions, and many more. Although most of them are large 

 and conspicuous, with yellow and pur[)le predominating in their color 

 scheme, a few, like the species of i)ussy toes, are small, compact, delicate, 

 and part of the unique flora of a woods in spring. Unlike many of the 

 earliest flowers, the plants of pussy toes remain a])ove ground, dark grey- 

 green now and Avhite below, all through the dry sunnner, the colori'ul 

 autumn, and the snows of winter, until spring shall come again. 



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