GRAY PUSSYTOES 



Antennaria howellii Greene 



When the showy flowers of spring abound, we naturally overlook 

 the less conspicuous plants, but as the season advances attention is at- 

 tracted to them. It is then that we notice the gray pussytoes growing 

 on flats along stream beds, where the waters from melting glaciers have 

 deposited some of their load of mud and sand. These flats support a 

 luxuriant growth of coarse grasses, sedges, and willows. In midsum- 

 mer they are overflowed in the afternoon of every warm day, and the 

 soil is always moist. In such situations this plant thrives, often form- 

 ing extensive colonies, which are propagated by prostrate leafy shoots 

 that take root and form new plants. The "seeds," also, are provided 

 with a tuft of silky hairs, so that they are easily carried to great dis- 

 tances by the wind. 



The range of this relative of the daisies is from Montana to Wash- 

 ington, and north to Alberta and British Columbia. 



The specimen sketched grew at Lone Tree Camp on the Siffleur 

 River, fifty miles north of Lake Louise Station, Alberta, Canada, at an 

 altitude of 5,000 feet. 



plate 104 



