COMPOSITE FAMILY 



COMPOSITAE 



PLANTAIN-LEAVED EVERLASTING 



Antennaria plantaginifolia (L.) Richards. 



Several species of Everlasting occur in Illinois and some of 

 them are quite difficult to distinguish. This is probably the com- 

 monest and gets its name from the fact that the basal leaves re- 

 semble those of Plantain. It is also called 

 Ladies' Tobacco, White Plantain, Pussytoes, 

 and sometimes Dogtoes. 



It grows in dry soil, especially in open 

 woods, from Quebec to Minnesota and south 

 to Florida and Texas, blooming from April 

 to June. The whole plant is densely woolly 

 and it often grows in patches which com- 

 pletely cover the ground. Size, leaf form and 

 other characteristics vary greatly among 

 individual plants. The flowering stems of 

 fertile plants are 4-20 inches high and may be 

 slender or stout. The basal leaves vary 

 greatly in size and shape but are usually 

 distinctly 3-ribbed, petioled, dull dark green 

 above and silvery beneath. Stem leaves are 

 sessile, oblong to lanceolate, and the upper 

 are small and widely separated. 



The heads are one-quarter of an 

 inch high and in convex racemose 

 clusters. The involucre is composed 

 of narrow greenish white bracts, 

 acute or acutish. The corollas are 

 tubular and distinctly i;-toothed. 

 The white bristle pappus is abun- 

 dant and the akenes are minutely 

 glandular. 



The sterile or staminate plants 

 seem to be less common than the pistillate. They are smaller, 

 3-8 inches high, and have somewhat smaller basal leaves. The 

 stem leaves are mostly linear and the bracts of the involucre are 

 oblong and blunt: Heads are smaller, corollas scarcely toothed 

 and the white bristle pappus scanty. 



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