COMPOSITAE (COMPOSITE FAMILY) 441 
COTTON ROSE 
Gifola germdnica, Dumort 
Other English names: Herba Impia, Childing Cudweed, Downy- 
weed, Owl’s Crown, Hoarwort. 
Introduced. Annual. Propagates by seeds. 
Time of bloom: June to September. 
Seed-time: August to November. 
Range: Atlantic States, New York to Georgia. 
Habitat: Dry fields and pastures. 
Its oddity tempts one to take a few plants to the home 
flower garden when first seeing a patch of this weed. Stems 
from the base, 
five to fifteen inches high, simple or branching 
the whole plant grayish white with soft woolly 
hair. Leaves alternate and crowded thick on 
the stem, lance-shaped, sessile, acute, erect, 
less than an inch long. At the top of the stalk 
is bunched a dense cluster of white-woolly discoid 
flower-heads, from among which rise several short, 
leafy branches, like the stalk below but more 
slender, and these in turn may have a bunch of 
woolly flower-heads and more leafy branches 
terminated by more woolly blossoms. For this 
odd habit of bloom it is called Childing Cud- 
weed, and the early botanists named it Herba 
Impia because the children so undutifully ex- 
alted themselves above their mother. (Fig. 306.) 
Means of control 
The lowest cluster of flower-heads ripens first, 
and in order to keep them from reproduction 
the plants must be cut as soon as these appear, 
before any “children” overtop them. 
PLANTAIN-LEAVED EVERLASTING 
Antennaria plantaginifolia, Richards 
Fie. 306.— 
Cotton Rose (Gi- 
fola germanica). 
Xx F- 
Other English names: Early or Spring Everlasting, Mouse-ear Ever- 
lasting, White Plantain, Ladies’ Tobacco, Pussy-toes. 
Native. Perennial. Propagates by seeds and by stolons. 
