Antennaria rosea
Antennaria friesiana
Antennaire rosée, rosy everlasting, rosy pussytoes
Antennaire de Fries, Fries' pussytoes
4–30 cm.
7–15 cm (stems stipitate-glandular, hairs purple).
1–7 cm.
0.1–4 cm.
1-nerved, 8–40 × 2–10 mm, spatulate, oblanceolate, or cuneate, tips mucronate, faces usually gray-pubescent, adaxial sometimes green-glabrous.
1-nerved, narrowly spatulate to oblanceolate, 11–30 × 2–4 mm, tips mucronate, abaxial faces tomentose, adaxial green-glabrescent to gray-pubescent.
linear, 6–36 mm, usually not flagged (apices acute to subulate or with lanceolate flags).
linear, 4–20 mm, flagged.
staminate unknown; pistillate 4–10 mm.
staminate 4–6.5 mm; pistillate 5.5–8 mm.
staminate unknown; pistillate 2.5–6 mm.
staminate 2.5–3 mm; pistillate 3–4.5 mm.
distally brown, cream, gray, green, pink, red, white, or yellow (apices acute or erose-obtuse).
distally usually black, light brown, dark brown, or olivaceous, sometimes.
3–20 in corymbiform arrays.
2–6 in corymbiform arrays.
0.7–1.8 mm, glabrous or papillate;
pappi: staminate unknown; pistillate 3.5–6.5 mm.
1.2–2 mm, glabrous or slightly papillate;
pappi: staminate 3–4 mm; pistillate 3.5–5 mm.
= 42, 56, (70).
= 28, 56, 63, 100+.
Antennaria rosea
Antennaria friesiana
Subspecies 4 (4 in the flora).
Antennaria rosea is the most widespread Antennaria of North America, occurring in dry to moist habitats from near sea level to the alpine zone. The A. rosea polyploid agamic complex is one of the more morphologically diverse complexes of North American Antennaria. It occurs from the western cordillera of North America from southern California, Arizona, and New Mexico north to subarctic Alaska and east to Greenland and, disjunctly, in the Canadian maritime provinces, eastern Quebec, and immediately north of and adjacent to Lake Superior (R. J. Bayer et al. 1991). Antennaria chilensis (including A. chilensis var. magellanica) is a Patagonian endemic that morphologically fits within the circumscription of A. rosea and may well be an amphitropical disjunct member of the complex.
Antennaria rosea is taxonomically confusing; it includes agamospermous microspecies that have been recognized as distinct taxonomic species. Morphometric and isozyme analyses have demonstrated that the primary source of morphologic variability in the complex derives from six sexually reproducing progenitors, A. aromatica, A. corymbosa, A. pulchella, A. microphylla, A. racemosa, and A. umbrinella (R. J. Bayer 1989b, 1990b, 1990c). Additionally, three other sexually reproducing species, A. marginata, A. suffrutescens, and A. rosulata, may have contributed to the genetic complexity of the A. rosea complex (Bayer 1990b). Here, four reasonably distinct subspecies are recognized within the complex.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Subspecies 3 (3 in the flora).
The Antennaria friesiana complex consists of subsp. alaskana, subsp. neoalaskana, and subsp. friesiana, the former two are dioecious (sexual) phases of the latter gynoecious (asexual) form. The sexual populations are known from Alaska and cordilleran areas of northern Yukon and adjacent Northwest Territories (R. J. Bayer 1991). The apomictic phase is almost circumpolar, occurring from the central and eastern Siberian plateau eastward across the North American arctic to Greenland (Bayer). E. Hultén (1968) circumscribed a fourth subspecies, A. friesiana subsp. compacta. After studying its morphology, in the field and herbarium, it is apparent that Hultén’s taxon contains at least three incongruous entities that are probably not at all related to the other two subspecies of A. friesiana. Hultén’s subsp. compacta included A. densifolia, which is recognized as a distinct species, and A. crymophila and A. neoalaskana as taxonomic synonyms. Antennaria compacta in the strict sense and A. crymophila are perhaps hybrid apomicts and are treated here in A. alpina (see Bayer for details). Antennaria neoalaskana is treated here as a subspecies of A. friesiana.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
1. Basal leaves 20–40 mm; phyllaries distally usually green, pink, red or white, seldom brown | subsp. rosea |
1. Basal leaves 8–20 mm; phyllaries distally brown, cream, gray, green, pink, red, white, or yellow | → 2 |
2. Pistillate: involucres 4–6.5 mm, corollas 2.5–4, pappi 3.5–5; cauline leaves 6–20 mm (tips subulate); phyllaries usually distally brown, sometimes cream, gray, or yellow | subsp. confinis |
2. Pistillate: involucres 6.5–10 mm, corollas 3.5–6 mm, pappi 5–6.5 mm; cauline leaves 6–19 or 9–26 mm (tips sometimes with flat, lanceolate scarious appendages); phyllaries distally brown, green, pink, red, or white | → 3 |
3. Plants 19–30 cm; cauline leaves 9–26 mm (proximalmost usually 19+ mm); heads usu- ally 6–12 | subsp. arida |
3. Plants 4–17 cm; cauline leaves 6–19 mm (proximalmost usually less than 19 mm); heads usually 3–5 | subsp. pulvinata |
1. Stolons 1–4 cm (usually prostrate, sometimes ascending, usually rooting at tips, plants forming mats); involucres: pistillate 7–8 mm | subsp. neoalaskana |
1. Stolons 0.5–1 cm (erect, usually not rooting at tips, plants not forming mats); involucres: pistillate 5.5–7 mm | → 2 |
2. Plants gynoecious (staminates unknown) | subsp. friesiana |
2. Plants dioecious (staminates and pistillates in equal frequencies in populations) | subsp. alaskana |
- Local floras:
BC, 
CA, 
OR - Local Web sites: CalFlora, CalPhotos,
Flora NW, 
MI Flora, 
MN Wildflowers, 
PNW Herbaria, 
SW CO Wildflowers, Turner Photog. 
WildflowerSearch
iNaturalist (observations)
USDA Plants Database- LBJ Wildflower Center
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