NATIVE WILD FLOWERS 
EARLY-FLOWERING EvERLASTING—Antennaria dioica 
(Gaertn. ). 
Our earliest Everlasting is a pretty low creeping plant, 
not exceeding six inches in height, with small round 
clustered heads of downy whiteness, with dark brown 
anthers, which resemble the antennze 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 whole 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, Rock 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 
dise, 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 
III 
