Antennaria Compacta

''Antennaria alpina'' (alpine pussytoes, alpine catsfoot, or alpine everlasting) is a European and North American species of plant in the family Asteraceae. ''Antennaria alpina'' is native to mountainous and subarctic regions of Scandinavia, Greenland, Alaska, and the Canadian Arctic, extending south at high altitudes in mountains in the Rocky Mountains south to Montana and Wyoming.

Description

''Antennaria alpina'' is a perennial, herbaceous plant growing 3 to 18 centimeters tall. The plant spreads by means of stolons that reach between 1 and 7 cm in length. It is a cushion plant, a compact, low-growing, mat-forming plant, with a dense taproot that forms annual growth rings.

The basal leaves, those attached to the base of the plant, have one prominent vein and are spatulate to oblanceolate in shape, with a length of 6 to 25 millimeters and a width of 2 to 7 mm. The surface of the leaves are green and nearly hairless to gray in color with many hairs, but the undersides are tomentose, white due to a thick covering of woolly hairs. The leaves attached to the stems are even smaller, and narrow like a blade of grass, just 5 to 20 mm long.

Each stem is topped with two to seven flowering heads. They have somewhat black bracts. Both the plants in North America and Scandinavia are mostly gynoecious, having almost all seed producing flowers and rarely producing flowers with pollen. It is an apomict, a species that will produce seeds asexually that are genetically identical to the parent. The involucre, the base under a flowering head, is 5–6.5 mm and 4–10 mm for a seed producing flower. They bloom in mid to late summer.

Taxonomy

In 1753 Carl Linnaeus described a species he named ''Gnaphalium alpinum''. This was moved to ''Antennaria'' by Joseph Gaertner, a new genus he created in 1791, to give the species its accepted name. It is further classified in the large family Asteraceae. According to Plants of the World Online, ''Antennaria alpina'' has synonyms.

Names

''Antennaria alpina'' is know by the common names ''alpine pussytoes'', ''alpine catsfoot'', or ''alpine everlasting''.

Range and habitat

Alpine pussytoes are limited to alpine and boreal habitats. In Europe it is native to Norway, Sweden, Finland, and northern parts of European Russia. It grows in the mountains of Sweden and Norway in the south and towards the North Sea coast further to the north. In Asia it grows in the botanical area of the Magadan Oblast which also includes the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug at the far eastern tip of Russia.

In North America it is found in Alaska and the three nortnern territories of Canda. Further south it grows in both Alberta and British Columbia in the west and parts of Ontario, Québec, Labrador, and Newfoundland in the east. In the contiguious US it only grows in Montana and Wyoming. The Natural Resources Conservation Service database only records it in six scattered counties in Montana. On Greenland it is a common plant found as far north at 75°23' N in the west and to 74°50' N in the east. It grows at elevations between 100 and 2400 meters.

It grows in dry to moist tundra and alpine tundra.

References

External links

Den virtuaella floran, Naturhistoriska riksmuseet, Stockholm, Fjällkattfot ''Antennaria alpina'' (L.) Gaertn.
in Swedish with photos

in Swedish with photos
Ian McLaren;s Arctic Flowers, ''Antennaria alpina''Turner Photographics, Wildflowers of the Pacific Northwest, ''Antennaria alpina''Electronic Atlas of the Flora of British Columbia, ''Antennaria alpina''

{{Taxonbar, from=Q2716398

alpina
Plants described in 1753
Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus
Flora of Subarctic America
Flora of Alberta
Flora of British Columbia
Flora of Finland
Flora of Labrador
Flora of Montana
Flora of Newfoundland
Flora of Norway
Flora of North European Russia
Flora of Ontario
Flora of Quebec
Flora of Sweden
Flora of Wyoming