Antennaria pulchella

Beautiful pussy-toes, beautiful pussy-toes, beautiful pussy-toes

Family: Asteraceae · Type: perennial · Native

Conservation status: CNPS 4.3

Beautiful pussy-toes is a California native perennial ranked 4.3 by CNPS, found in the Sierra Nevada and northern eastern Sierra Nevada (Sweetwater Mountains) in mountain meadows, snow basins, and ridges at elevations of 2,800 to 3,700 meters. Flowering from July to August, this plant produces white flowers in small clusters of 4 to 6 heads with narrow, acute phyllaries that are often dark brown-black at the tips. Growing with multiple matted stolons and short stems 3 to 12 centimeters tall, it forms dense, low-growing mats across alpine landscapes. Its basal leaves are 6 to 12 millimeters long, linear to spoon-shaped, densely woolly, and often purple-glandular, while its cauline leaves remain narrow and linear. The plant's distinctive glandular herbage and compact growth form help it survive in harsh, high-elevation alpine environments.

Habitat: Meadows, snow basins, ridges

Bloom period: Jul-Aug

Elevation: 2800-3700 m

Bioregions: SNH, n SNE (Sweetwater Mtns)

Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.