Kansas Wildflowers and Grasses - Parlin's pussy's-toes

PARLIN'S PUSSY'S-TOES

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Antennaria parlinii Fernald

Shawnee County, Kansas

Perennial

Height: 4-18 inches

Family: Asteraceae - Sunflower Family

Flowering Period: April, May

Stems:

Erect, simple, tomentose.

Leaves:

Mostly basal, cauline much-reduced, alternate. Basal leaves: blade spatulate to ovate, elliptic, or obovate, .8 to 2.4 inches long, .2 to 2.2 inch wide, 3- or 5-veined, margins entire, tip rounded to acute and mucronate, lower surface white, tomentose to pubescent, upper surface gray-green, floccose to glabrescent. Cauline leaves oblong-lanceolate, .2 to 1.6 inches.

Inflorescences:

Heads 4-15, in corymb-like arrays. Involucres, cylindric to campanulate or hemispheric, .28 to .5 inch; phyllaries in 3-6 series.

Flowers:

Ray florets 0; disk florets 20-100, white, staminate or pistillate: corolla .16 to .24 inch, 5-lobed.

Fruits:

Achenes brown, ovoid, .05 to .06 inch; pappus of 10-20 smooth or barbellate bristles, .2 to .3 inch, bristles connate basally, falling as a unit.

Habitat:

Rocky, oak-hickory forests and woodlands, glades

Distribution:

East 2/5 of Kansas

Origin:

Native

Uses:

The leaves remain green through the winter and are eaten by deer, rabbits, grouse, and bobwhite quail.

Comments:

Named for American botanist John Crawford Parlin. Antennaria, antennae and possessing, alluding to pappus bristles of the staminate florets. Parlin's pussy's-toes are dioecious (having staminate flowers on one plant and pistillate flowers on a separate plant) or gynodioecious (having some plants with only bisexual flowers and some with only pistillate flowers).

See also field pussy-toes

Parlin's pussy's-toes staminate infloresence