Pale Indian Plantain

Scientific Name

Arnoglossum atriplicifolium (also Cacalia atriplicifolia)

Family

Asteraceae (daisies, sunflowers)

Description

Pale Indian plantain's leaves look almost artificial. They are stout, smooth, and have a waxy-white coating beneath. They are irregularly shaped, with pointed lobes. Leaves at the base of this single-stemmed plant can be 6 inches wide.

Pale Indian plantain is a perennial plant with a single stem, a silvery coating, widely spaced leaves, and a terminal, spreading flower cluster. The roots are somewhat fleshy.

The flower clusters are at the branch tips, arranged in a flat-topped, loose corymb (the center flowerheads bloom first).

The small flowerheads of this daisy-family plant contain all disk florets, with no petal-like ray florets. The disk florets are white. The flowerheads are surrounded by long, stiff greenish-white bracts.

Blooms June–October.

The leaves are pale green above, silvery-white-waxy (glaucous) below. They stand out obliquely and are irregularly shaped with pointed lobes, the lower ones wider than long, irregularly lobed and toothed, to 6 inches wide. The leaves become smaller higher up the stem.

When mature, the flowers turn into fluffy seedheads that resemble small dandelion heads.

Similar species: Two other species of Indian plantains (Arnoglossum) occur in Missouri; they have slightly different habitat preferences and distributions:

Prairie, groovestem, or tuberous Indian plantain (Arnoglossum plantagineum) is apparently absent from parts of northern Missouri and the Bootheel. It is more common in prairies, glades, blufftops, woodland openings, and other sunny open places. Its leaves are not lobed and are untoothed or only shallowly toothed; the leaf veins are fairly parallel (except at the base and outer tip); the leaves are thickened and leathery or papery. The involucral bracts around each flowerhead have a sharp, winglike keel that is quite distinctive. Blooms May–August.
Great Indian plantain (Arnoglossum reniforme) is scattered mostly in the Ozarks, Ozark border, and glaciated plains of northern Missouri. It grows in fairly moist, and almost always shaded areas: bottomland forests, moist upland woodlands, bases and ledges of bluffs, and banks of streams and rivers; sometimes along roadsides. To distinguish it from pale Indian plantain, note its stems that are grooved and are angled (not rounded) in cross-section. Its stems are not glaucous (white-waxy coated), and the leaves are not or only slightly glaucous on the undersurface. The lowest leaves are large, rounded, and fairly regularly and shallowly lobed and toothed. Blooms May–September.

Size

Height: 4–10 feet.

image of Pale Indian Plantain distribution map

Statewide.

Habitat and Conservation

Occurs in low bottomland forests and upland woods, bases and ledges of bluffs, banks of streams and rivers, and pastures, roadsides, and railroads.

This plant prefers shade or dappled shade in our area, but it is also a common prairie plant in Illinois and farther east.

Status

Native Missouri wildflower. Considered a good candidate for native wildflower gardening, because of its interesting foliage and preference for shady locations.

Human Connections

Botanists have pointed out that this plant, with its interesting foliage, would make an attractive addition to the garden. Look for it at native plant nurseries. Its preference for shaded locations makes it an intriguing option for shady areas.

The word “Indian” in the common names of plants often essentially means “false,” or "the American version of," designating a North American plant that somehow resembles a different plant that European settlers knew from the Old World.

One example is "Indian corn," or maize, which we now call just "corn." It was named because it was the principal grain of Native Americans (originally, "corn" in the Old World referred to wheat).
Some exceptions are the names “Indian paintbrush” and “Indian pipe,” where the plants were named for fancifully resembling objects used by Native Americans.
Another exception is Indian strawberry, which got its name because it originally came from the Indian subcontinent.

The genus name, Arnoglossum, means "lamb's tongue," referring to the plantain-family-type leaves of some member or members of this genus.

Ecosystem Connections

Insects must cross-pollinate the flowers in order for viable seeds to be produced.

Found throughout much of the eastern United States, this plant is rare enough in the state of New Jersey for it to have been declared endangered there.

Despite the name, pale Indian plantain is not in the plantain family, it is in the daisy or sunflower family. Some of its closer relatives in Missouri are the groundsels or ragworts (Packera spp.).