Plainleaf Pussytoes (Parlin's Pussytoes)

Scientific Name

Antennaria parlinii

Family

Asteraceae (daisies, sunflowers)

Description

Plainleaf pussytoes, or Parlin's pussytoes, is named for its fuzzy flowerheads. It is one of the few flowering plants in Missouri that grows well in dry and shaded areas. It’s one of two pussytoes species in Missouri.

Plainleaf pussytoes is a densely hairy perennial plant that produces a hairy flowering stalk from a basal whorl of leaves. Pussytoes have fibrous roots and spead via leafy stolons (runners), so they often form colonies.

The fuzzy flowerheads account for the name pussytoes. The flowerheads are in tight clusters at the tip of the stalk and are white to off-white; there are only disk florets (no petal-like ray florets).

The flowerheads look different on different plants because each plant is either male or female (this species is dioecious).

In male plants, the flowerheads have narrow, tube-shaped, golden or brownish anthers that protrude above the white flowerheads.
In female plants, the flowerheads lack the antenna-like anthers and appear fluffier because of their longer-haired pappus bristles.

Blooms April–June.

The fruits are tiny seeds attached to fluffy "parachutes" (similar to those on dandelions); only female flowerheads produce these seedheads.

The leaves are of two types: basal (in a whorl over the ground) and cauline (stem leaves):

The basal leaves are paddle-shaped, mostly ¾–1¾ inches wide, on long stems, and have 3 (or 5) prominent veins (the veins are easiest to see on the leaf undersurface); the basal leaves usually appear after flowering has started. The upper surface ranges from hairless to densely woolly; the undersurface is densely woolly.
The stem leaves are few, narrow (almost linear), and short.

Missouri has two subspecies of plainleaf pussytoes. For more information about them, see Ecosystem Connections.

Similar species: Missouri has one other species of pussytoes: field pussytoes (Antennaria neglecta). It looks very similar to plainleaf pussytoes, with the following differences:

Its basal leaves have only one central vein (only occasionally with an additional faint pair of main veins).
Its basal leaves are much smaller (less than ¾ inch wide).
The upper surface of the basal leaves usually becomes hairless with age.
The upper stem leaves have a short, hairlike extension of the midvein at the outer tip.
The upper stem leaves, at the base, often have 2 narrow wings of tissue extending along the stem below the attachment point.
This species is notable for forming extensive colonies of dense mats of basal rosettes, easily seen in spring before they are covered by grasses and other plants.
It is more commonly found in sunnier habitats, occurring in prairies, openings in upland woodlands, fields, lawns, cemeteries, railroads, and roadsides.
It occurs in northern, western, and central Missouri. It is mostly absent from the Ozarks and the Bootheel.

Other Common Names

Indian Tobacco

Ladies' Tobacco

Pussy's Toes

Catsfoot

Size

Height: to 10 inches.

image of Pussytoes Indian Tobacco distribution map

Statewide.

Habitat and Conservation

Occurs in moist to dry upland woodlands, upland prairies, savannas, and ledges and tops of bluffs; less commonly in glades, ditches, banks of streams and rivers, and along margins of ponds and lakes; also occurs in pastures, roadsides, and open, disturbed areas.

Typically found on dry, rocky, often wooded slopes on acid soils.

This plant is an indicator of acid soil. It is also one of the few flowering plants in our state that lives well in dry, shaded habitats.

Status

Native Missouri wildflower.

This is the most common Antennaria species across eastern North America. Its overall distribution is broad: from the Great Plains (Texas through Manitoba) eastward to the east coast (excluding Florida, Newfoundland, and Labrador).

Human Connections

Plainleaf pussytoes, with its unusual flowers, can be cultivated as a ground cover or rock garden plant in difficult dry but shady areas. It attracts birds and butterflies.

The various species of Antennaria have had numerous medicinal uses for Native Americans and in folk medicine.

The common name, pussytoes, is from the look of the flowers, especially the fuzzy-looking female flowerheads. (There is poetry in wildflower names!)

The genus name, Antennaria, refers to the antenna-like, protruding anthers of the male florets.

The species name, parlinii, honors John Crawford Parlin (1863–1948), who discovered the species. He, and the famous plant taxonomist Merritt Lyndon Fernald (who named it), were both natives of Maine.

Ecosystem Connections

Pussytoes leaves tend to stay green all winter and therefore provide a welcome food source for herbivores such as rabbits, deer, and northern bobwhite.

The eastern pine elfin butterfly is especially fond of visiting pussytoes flowers for nectar, and its emergence from pupation is timed to coincide with the springtime flowering of this native wildflower.

Since its larval food plant is our native shortleaf pine (so the females must lay eggs on the pine), you will find adult pine elfins fluttering around in areas that have both pine trees and blooming pussytoes.
Look for pine elfins visiting pussytoes flowers in our Ozark shortleaf pine forests in April and early May.

The American lady butterfly uses Antennaria species and other closely related members of the sunflower family as larval food plants.

Their caterpillars feed from inside a tent they build of silk and leaves.

The everlasting tebenna moth (Tebenna gnaphaliella) is small but quite decorative, in a family called metalmark moths. It uses pussytoes and its close relatives as caterpillar food plants.

Across its wide range, plainleaf pussytoes is a variable species. It is believed to have arisen from long-ago hybridizations with three other eastern Antennaria species.

Missouri has two subspecies of plainleaf pussytoes, which can sometimes be difficult to distinguish from each other. Both are common and may be found statewide. They grow in the same habitats and sometimes grow very near one another:

1. Smooth Parlin's pussytoes, Antennaria parlinii ssp. parlinii, is slightly more common than ssp. fallax statewide, except in some western parts of the state:

Its basal leaves are only sparsely hairy (often appearing cobwebby rather than woolly) or are hairless (glabrous) on the upper surface.
It usually has some purplish glandular hairs toward the tip of young stems.

2. Downy Parlin's pussytoes, Antennaria parlinii ssp. fallax, is slightly less common in Missouri, except in some western parts of the state:

It has the basal leaves more densely woolly or felty on the upper surface, though the hairs may diminish with age.
It lacks purplish hairs on young stems.

There are about 35 species of pussytoes in North America. Only two are officially recorded for Missouri.

Pussytoes are in the same tribe of the sunflower/daisy family as sweet everlasting, several plants called rabbit tobacco, purple cudweed, and the cultivated garden plant called pearly everlasting.

The tribe, Gnaphalieae (sometimes called paper daisies), is most diverse in South America, southern Africa, and Australia. There are about 2,000 species globally.
In Missouri, 10 species in this tribe have been recorded as native or growing out of cultivation.
One of the most well-known members of the tribe is edelweiss (Leontopodium nivale), famous in the European Alps as a symbol and in song.
Strawflowers (Xerochrysum spp.) are also in this tribe. Native to Australia, they are garden favorites; their daisy-like flowers have colorful, stiff, papery, petal-like bracts.

A third species of pussytoes may someday be discovered in Missouri, as it is found in nearby portions of Arkansas, Tennessee, and Kentucky:

Singlehead pussytoes (Antennaria solitaria) resembles plainleaf pussytoes, except its flowering stem bears only a single, rather large flowerhead at the top (not a cluster of flowerheads).

Plants in genus Antennaria can be rather difficult to identify, because they tend to hybridize and create unique new genetic combinations.

Botanists have been studying the various types of pussytoes, trying to determine which forms merit distinction as subspecies and which are simply strange hybrids.