White and Greenish 



Pearly, or Large-flowered, Everlasting; Im- 

 mortelle; Silver Leaf; Moonshine; Cotton- 

 weed ; None-so-pretty 



{Anaphalis margaiitacea) Thistle family 

 {Anteniiaria niargaritacea of Gray) 



Flower-heads — Numerous pearly-white scales of the involucre 

 holding tubular florets only; borne in broad, rather flat, com- 

 pound corymbs at the summit. Stem: Cottony, i to 3 ft. 

 high, leafy to the top. Leaves: Upper ones small, narrow, 

 linear ; lower ones broader, lance-shaped, rolled backward, 

 more or less woolly beneath. 



Preferred Habitat — Dry fields, hillsides, open woods, uplands. 



Flowering Season — ^J uly — September. 



Distribution — North Carolina, Kansas, and California, far north. 



When the small, white, overlapping scales of an everlasting's 

 oblong involucre expand stiff and straight, each pert little flower- 

 head resembles nothing so much as a miniature pond lily, only 

 what would be a lily's yellow stamens are in this case the true 

 tlowers, which become brown in drying. It will be noticed 

 that these tiny tlorets, so well protected in the centre, are of 

 two different kinds, separated on distinct heads : the female 

 florets with a tubular, five-cleft corolla, a two-cleft style, and a 

 copious pappus of hairy bristles ; the staminate, or male, florets 

 more slender, the anthers tailed at the base. Self-fertilization 

 being, of course, impossible under such an arrangement, the 

 florets are absolutely dependent upon little winged pollen carriers, 

 whose sweet reward is well protected for them from pilfering 

 ants by the cottony substance on the wiry stem, a device success- 

 fully employed by thistles also (see page 77). 



An imaginary blossom that never fides has been the dream 

 of poets from Milton's day; but seeing one, who loves it .^ Our 

 amaranth has the aspect of an artificial tlower— stiff, dry, soul- 

 less, quite in keeping with the decorations on the average farm- 

 house mantelpiece. Here it forms the most uncheering of winter 

 bouquets, or a wreath about flowers made from the lifeless hair 

 of some dear departed. 



In open, rocky places, moist or dry, the Clammy Everlasting, 

 Sweet Balsam, or Winged Cudweed {Giiaphalium decurrens) pre- 

 fers to dwell. A wholesome fragrance, usually mingled with that 

 of sweet fern, pervades its neighborhood. Its yellowish-white 

 little flower-heads clustered at the top of an erect stem, and its 



266 



