NATIVE WILD FLOWERS 



EARLY-FLOWERING EVERLASTING Antennaria dioica 

 ( Gaertn. ) . 



Our earliest Everlasting is a pretty low creeping plant r 

 not exceeding six inches in height, with small round 

 clustered heads of downy whiteness, with dark brown 

 anthers, which resemble the antennae of some small insect, 

 whence the generic name Antennaria is taken. The leaves 

 of the plant are white beneath and slightly cottony on the 

 outer surface, becoming darker green during the summer. 

 The rootstock is spreading, the leaves numerous, roundish- 

 spatulate. The w T hole plant has a hoary appearance when* 

 it first springs up. 



This modest, innocent-looking little flower peeps forth in 

 April and carpets the dry gravelly hills with its downy 

 blossoms and soft silken leaves, sharing the newly uncovered 

 earth with the Blue Violet (Viola cucullata), and early 

 pale yellow Crowfoot, Eock Saxifrage and Barren Wild 

 Strawberry (Waldsteinia fragarioides Tratt), which is 

 then beginning to put forth its new foliage and yellow 

 flowers, that have been kindly sheltered by the persistent 

 leaves of the former year, now red and bronzed by the 

 frosts of early spring. Our pretty Canadian Everlasting 

 bears some family resemblance to the far-famed " Edelweiss " 

 of the High Alps (Leontopodium alpinum). As in that 

 flower, the clustered heads are set round the centre of the 

 disc, like a little infant family surrounding the careful 

 mother. 



In the singular Alpine species the whole plant, from 

 root-leaves to stem and involucre, is thickly clothed with 

 snow-white down, as if to keep it warmly defended from the 

 bitter mountain blasts and whirling showers of snow and 



in 



