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. 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. to give the species its accepted name. alpine catsfoot, or alpine everlasting.
Range and habitat
Alpine pussytoes are limited to alpine and boreal habitats. 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.